


Someone Who'll Protect You

by Vee



Category: Doctor Who, Muse
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-11
Updated: 2010-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:21:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 57,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vee/pseuds/Vee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the year of some lord or another 2006, The Doctor is finally summoned back to the oldest planet of the 4th Pleiadean star system, the end of a 20-odd year bodyguard mission in sight. But familiarity sometimes breeds something more than contempt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Vague throbbing sensation to the back of the head. Relative directly to head being laid on something cold and hard. Movement limited. Relative directly to entire body being laid, and in no natural way, on something cold and hard. Blurred vision. Dizzy feeling. Muscles inordinately sore. Despite all this, it was not a hangover. 

He sat up though it took great effort. What was certain in his mind was that he had been out for some time. The cramp in his neck and the stiffness in his joints told him that much. It was an unpleasantly familiar feeling, one he hadn't had the misfortune of experiencing for some time. 

Strange floor. Strange feeling. The surface beneath him seemed to be thrumming, but that might have just been his body playing a percussive extension of his head. A groan tried to worm its way out as his eyes focused, downward. The first thing he noticed was a rip in his shirt. Consciousness dawned a little more quickly than he had expected, then, as a wave of panic and despair shot through him. Brand new Etro shirt. Ripped down the side seam, a chunk torn out where the tear began, suggesting it had caught rather violently on something. A £250 shirt. Fantastic. "Shit." 

No use looking up and around yet, he figured. No idea how any unexpected bright lights might effect his head, which continued to verberate in a subtly nauseating way. Vaguely, though. It wasn't a hangover; of that much he was certain. There was something completely off about the whole situation, about his whole headspace, about the space that surrounded him. 

Ripped shirt, unfamiliar surface, possible blunt force trauma. He was not one to jump to the worst case scenario, usually, but as the evidence added up a dawning of possibility set in.

Urge to check for both of his kidneys: resisted.

Floor, slightly mirrored. His eyes shifted and focused, and whatever was pulsing in colors and flaring lights above was dulled by the worn sheen of the steely metallic surface. Still, it would serve a purpose. Out of instinct and the need to know he placed both palms to the floor and leaned over it (again, with difficulty) to inspect his own reflection. 

Some paleness; no more than usual, really. Whatever sickly color could probably be attributed to the lighting. Five o'clock shadow. Eyes a little bloodshot, understandable since he was still waking up. No blood, no blemishes, nothing noticeably out of place. A sigh of relief was in order. At least his face was still intact. 

"Someday the urge to gaze lovingly into a mirror will be the death of you. Write that down, it's probably going to crop up again." 

The voice, though familiar, was enormously startling and closer than he'd sensed anyone being. Consciousness and slight panic gave way to an adrenaline blitz, and he spun around to face the voice, leaning back a little in the process. "Jesus buggering Christ, you _want_ to kill me?" 

"Quite the opposite." Perched on a small riser of stairs, the far-too-amused owner of the voice watched him from a very short distance, one thumbnail on his bottom lip, looking a bit more sharp and a bit more dark than he normally did. "Good morning, Dominic." 

"All right. Laugh it up. Where are we?" Lights, way too many of them. He expected an assault of sickness to wash over him, but it remarkably did not. There was machinery. Lots of machinery. What sort of machinery, he couldn't really figure out. Odds, ends, platforms, tubes, threes levels of bleeping, blooping somethingorother with stairs and catwalks criss-crossing not unlike a few of the more fantastical sketches he'd done in his lifetime. And color, so much color. Too much color for right now. 

Dom's struggle to get to his feet was almost comical, until he realized that he was perfectly in possession of his equilibrium and motor functions, after all. He still had not been answered, even as he was sorting himself out on two feet, looking around and straightening out his back. Overwhelmed by the displeasure of not being in on a joke, he twisted his face up into a very disapproving look. Destroyed shirt but otherwise everything else was quite all right. His hands moved over the front of his trousers, breaking loose some nonexistent dust for pure show. "Matt, are we in a club or something?" 

A snap of the fingers before pointing in the air, and Matt was off his haunches and on his feet in what seemed like a tenth of a second. "Ah! First things first, that is _not_ my real name, but we'll get back to that because it's tad confusing and what is, for all intents and purposes, my real name isn't my "real" real name, so for now just skip it. It'll take you a while. It'll take _me_ a while, I'm getting back into the groove, myself, here!" He was giggly and expressive with every inch of his body, at least that's what Dom figured in the moments he stopped moving. It was Matt (or was it?), rushing around the upper level madly, not entire uncharacteristic but certainly jarring given the circumstances. Down below, Dom blinked a few times to try and slow him down, but it was just an illusion. He really was bolting around at hummingbird speed, pulling a lever here and kicking a bleepy, bloopy box there. A few triumphant cackles flew from him before he wound up directly above Dom, flat on his stomach and pulling himself over the edge of the catwalk to get closer. "I'm sorry, it's like everything gets to _happen_ now that you're awake, and now I am very excited." He flipped over with a short roll and the giggles gave way to full-fledged laughter. "Very, very excited! Because it was getting so boring being cooped up back there. You can't even imagine it. I got the signal to return this morning and, while I'm sorry that in my haste I may have coerced you just a _tiny_ bit, I thought to myself 'this is when it all starts, this is when the real fun begins', do you know what I mean? Nah, of course you don't, you don't know a thing yet. Oh, it's going to be fun briefing you, that's for certain."

Matt, legs and arms dangling now between the guardrails of the catwalk, grinning so frantically that nothing could really be done to tear Dom's eyes away. Jaw, open. "Well," he was still unimpressed, but had come to a conclusion, "you're not right at the moment. I'll let you be, then. Should I…should I leave?" 

What looked like a door, next to what looked like a coat rack, Matt's red bomber jacket hanging there. Footing stable enough to make his way to the second level, to start for it with a stride of determination. 

Though Dom turned and gestured again, expecting Matt to provide some excuse or explanation, he only kept laughing as he gathered into a sitting position, Leaning over one knee, watching intently, he made a little high-pitched noise and flicked three fingers forward. "Go on, then. There's the door." 

It was that obvious, impish "I know something you don't" look on his face that made Dom hesitate, hand on the metal pull. He leveled an inquisitive expression at Matt and arched one eyebrow.

"So what _is_ your name?" 

Matt's face lit up as if it were an announcement he'd been eager to make. He took on the pretentiously overwrought voice he sometimes adopted when he wanted to seem ironically pompous: "The Doctor."

A beat. "Right, mate. Cheers." 

High, drunk, maybe a little of both. But Matt was entertaining as ever, and Dom couldn't avoid a grin at the answer, opening the door as he turned to go. Luckily, he opened his eyes from a chuckle just in time to stop short. 

Significantly many more beats this time, and Dom turned around. "Okay, what in the _actual fuck_ is going on?" 

A look of absolute indignation came over Matt at this. "Don't sound so put-upon, Princess, you started this!" 

Deciding to ignore the nickname for the immediate future, Dom turned around, pointed outside, and then jerked back around. Space. Big, black, white-flecked space, splotched with colors zooming by moment-for-moment. "There…is _space_ …out there. That should be Copenhagen." 

Matt thought for a tick and fluttered his fingers in the air. Interrupted. "Technically it should be Devon, that's where I've kept the TARDIS, that's where I got you off to, but you don't really remember anything so we're square I suppose." He wrapped it up as quickly and confusingly as possible, urging Dom to continue with an earnest expression.

"Yeah! Doesn't matter! Wait! Actually! It does! What do you mean "got me off to"?" He narrowed his eyes and stepped forward. Head low between his shoulders, prowling. Very much ready to pounce should anger warrant. 

Matt leaned back as Dom advanced. "The door. Dom. Could you…close the door, it really lets out the air conditioning if you keep it open for too long." 

"Did you do this?" Very important: the Etro shirt and its significant tear. 

"Technically a fencepost did that. Can you close the door? I would have thought you'd be more worked up about having been abducted and sedated, but sometimes I forget your priorities." Dom was standing beneath the catwalk again, akimbo and glaring up. "The door." Matt gestured with his hand and his eyes until realizing it was a lost cause. 

"All right, fine. You're going to make me do the explanation thing for you even though that's painfully boring and I was all excited to get to the fun of things. You're not fun." 

"I'm plenty fun! I think considering I'm in a strange room with _space_ outside, though, demanding an explanation isn't unheard of." 

"Time machine." 

"What?" 

" TARDIS, just call it the TARDIS. Time machine. Spaceship. Technically both. Listen, let's just have some tea, and—" 

Matt was halfway across the catwalk when Dom let out a howl of disapproval, and Matt grabbed the nearest guardrail as if thrown physically off-balance by the sound. 

"You got a _spaceship_ , when did you get a _spaceship?_ I should have gotten the spaceship!" 

He rolled his eyes fantastically and slumped against the rail. "I've always _had_ the spaceship." 

"Stop looking at me like I'm being some sort of harpy." 

"I'm not looking at you like—" 

"I know that look, I know that look very well. Now I'm willing to accept this, I'm willing to play along, and you don't even need to do the big "explanation thing" if you don't want to, because this is obviously some elaborate mind-fuck you're staging…just tell me how I fit into it, and why you had to take it this far." 

The kettle and range were quite central to the design, and thank heaven for small mercies. As Matt went about fixing up some tea, the elaborateness just kept getting more elaborate. "Bodyguard mission. Didn't really want to do it. Didn't really have a choice, though, and what's a couple dozen Earth years to a Time Lord, anyway? Some days I think I actually forgot who I really was, to be honest. Got homesick. A little. Sorry about some of those songs, heh. Especially the new album, really went overboard there. Anyway, in the year of some lord or another two zero zero six, there was a great and mighty communiqué arrived from the oldest planet of the 4th Pleiadean star system known as Dolexaro, asking me at long, long last to return," he was trying to keep a façade of mystery, but his determination bowed to the allure of mischief. He pulled at his bottom lip in mock contemplation, but couldn't stave off the smirk, "and to bring my precious cargo along."

Nothing new, really. Not from Matt, at least. "Go on." 

"Oh, not enough to faze you, then? Well, that's always been something about you. Royal blood, that." He pointed down at Dom and clicked his tongue. Without another word of illumination, then, back to watching the kettle. One hand pressed to the small of his back, the pose alluringly awkward as he appeared to chew on his thumbnail. 

Wait. Dom took the risers two stairs at a time and was standing on the other side of the unremarkable range, glass kettle between them and Matt still playing coy, glancing halfway at him from beneath the jagged fringe of his dark hair. 

"Okay. I give up. Explain." Something inside needled him at being called "royal" at the same time that it made his more fanciful side surge with excitement. However he may have wanted to legitimately react, angles needed to be covered first. 

Space outside. Spaceship. Star systems. Time Lord came up there, somewhere. Lords, royal blood. Matt could run his mouth all he wanted to and Dom was nothing if not attentive.

"Quite simply," when he wasn't moving like a puppy on amphetamines around the place, Dom could actually observe how different, how keen and in-control Matt seemed, even with that ridiculous grin on his face. It wasn't just the environment and it wasn't the result of any outside force. It just was. Different, somehow, like a switch had been hit. He turned once, fluttering his fingers in the air again, trying to locate his words until they tumbled out of his mouth and one of those fingers pointed at Dom, "it's time to take you back home, Princess." 

Another one of those beats. "What?" 

"Well. Not a Princess, exactly. Though that is your official title. Sole heir to the Dolexari Empire, which is, to simplify the situation far more than it should be simplified but I just don't have time for a three billion year history lesson, the most important ruling body in the entire Pleiadean Cluster. Well, I suppose you could count the Thousand-Year Priestesses of Sseilliani in the 6th system, but, nah," he waved at the air, and plucked the kettle up just as it began to whistle, "you're better. Because you…now this gets tricky, follow me: you were conceived and born off-planet, not even to the knowledge of your parents. Well, your mother and her mate. It's a bit of matriarchy. Okay, it's a _lot_ of a matriarchy. But the scientists behind the throne of the Dolexari Empire were so, so, so clever to hide you. They were able to predict the rise of the Jhinzi and make arrangements so long before it happened. Basically," he handed Dom a teacup on a mismatching saucer and smiled, "you're going to swoop in and take back the entire Empire like that, because no one even knows you exist! It's all very complicated and political and, you know, shadowplay, balances of power, but this morning's message did say the Jhinzi are making a steady retreat, and that your mother is _very_ keen on seeing you for the first time. Isn't that exciting? I'm excited. I'm getting excited again, see? You couldn't keep me down for long with that attitude. She'll be so thrilled to see what a handsome young man her only daughter has grown to be!"

The complicated political shadowplay meant nothing to him. Dom held his saucer, unmoving. "Princess." 

"It's a family name. They were due a Princess Dominique XVI, and since the scientists didn't really have time to finalize the chromosomal structure before off you went…you're Princess Dominique XVI," at this Matt dissolved into laughter again, putting aside his own teacup, "oh, you should see your face!" 

"This is a joke, then. Matt? Because it's actually not funny." 

Matt cleared his throat and thrust his hand out, indicating past Dom's shoulder. "I'd like to point out the door that is still open, the big fucking _space_ that's flying by right now." He leapt over a few scattered tools, over a short rail, up the second-level riser, and closed the door at last. Crossing his arms, he leaned against it, very satisfied indeed. "Not a joke. And again, the name's The Doctor." 

"The Doctor? You hate doctors." 

"I hate doctors because they tend to complicate things." No further explanation. He took his time wandering back to join Dom, this time. "Your attitude is harshing my excitement, again."

Disbelief. Exasperation. But everything made a little too much sense for Dom to fully discredit it. He paused for a long, uneasy while, sipping his tea, his right leg tapping out arrhythmic beats to relieve his nerves. "Could I still call you Matt? Or Matthew?" He finally asked.

"Maybe," he was The Doctor and that was that, but he shot Dom an appraising glare and sighed, "if you promise not to be a harpy."


	2. Chapter 2

"Some of these are hideous. Some of these, literally, need to be burnt. Does this have four armholes?" It was probably just a way of dealing with the situation without actually having to confront it. Dom had been rushing in and out of the massive wardrobe ever since finishing off his tea and demanding a new shirt. Instead of selecting a new garment within a reasonable minute or so, however, he had taken instead to systematically cleaning out the closet. "I recognize some of these clothes." 

"I may have hidden - I mean - stored some things in here over the years, yes," the Doctor played his bottom lip with his fingers, resignation and wistfulness battling for dominance as he knelt outside and watched the pile of unnecessary things grow (Dom being the arbiter of necessity, of course), "and oi, don't do anything to that jacket with the four armholes. I borrowed that. I'll get around to returning it someday."

Plaid. Garish, ought-to-be-illegal green-on-yellow plaid with what looked like paisley embroidery woven over it in red stitching. It was actually painful to Dom's eyes, regardless of the extra arms. When he emerged once again from the wardrobe, he was holding it at arm's-length. With his other hand he chucked a disastrously shiny silk shirt into the pile, ignoring a whine from the Doctor. 

"Return it now. Why not now?" His eyes pulsed with mischief. 

"Because we're expected." As if he'd explained it over and around and back again already. 

"Because you want to get rid of me, is what." Dom left the jacket hanging on the doorknob, obviously not willing to share space with it. "Maybe I'm not ready to leave yet. You say I'm royal? Does that mean you take orders from me, then?" 

The Doctor snorted and said softly into his hand: "Not yet." 

From within the walk-in closet of the damned: "What was that?" 

"Nothing," he swallowed thickly upon actually considering the ramifications of current events. "But nice try. I'm a Time Lord; my entire race doesn't tend to take orders." 

"Oh god, there's a whole _race_ like you…"

"Well, duck, there's no one like me…" 

Dom leaned out of the door, giving him a warning look. It was too much to resist, though, so Dom finished before he could, "…in the universe." 

"Oh, that would have been a pretentious lyric, wouldn't it have been? Third person self-worship?" The look on his face, though, didn't discount this. "Maybe it was about you." 

"What? Yeah, okay. Save it. I'll bet you say that to all the Princesses." 

"Ah! So you believe!" 

"Perhaps you missed the tone of my voice," he _was_ erring on the side of caustic, "and besides, I've been turning this over in my head, so help me sort it out: you said this was a time machine. So if we're expected, and I want to run off to somewhere on a little adventure, couldn't we conceivably still get there right on time? Conceivably? Eh?" 

Damn, he was smart, but the Doctor had always been remarkably good at distracting him. 

"I don't think you should write off the possibility that I put together a song about you, even one, during the tenure of our friendship. That wounds me." 

Dom came marching back out, and this time he was pulling off his garishly printed shirt once and for all, "You know, maybe I'm predisposed to write off any possibility. I still don't have any reason to believe all of this. However, the owner of that jacket might be able to corroborate your story. Plus, I want to meet the sort of person who'd wear that." 

"I don't know that you really want what you think you want." The Doctor stumbled over those words, distracted by the disrobing body in front of him. Wasn't his fault, actually. Dom was parading rather flagrantly, everything about his mannerisms tuned to a high tension in response to the unfolding events. He was close enough to catch the uncertainty on the Doctor's face, and thankfully for the Doctor that was before his eyes went to places he would rather Dom have not caught him looking. 

"Or maybe _you_ don't. I know I want you to get rid of that thing. I know I want some proof. I know I want to see some aliens that don't look like you, some space stuff that isn't based solely on me taking you at your word. Which I've done before, mind, and it's gotten me into trouble." 

The Doctor tried to search through his memories, came up willfully ignorant of whatever Dom was talking about. "Whatever you're referring to, I don't remember it and I'll bet you had fun anyway. _My point being_ , I really shouldn't be taking you out in public anywhere, quite literally _any time_. Present, past, future, it doesn't matter. It's not safe! You've had the perfect camouflage up until now, but I just don't think you--"

"But you see, that's just it! I've still got the perfect camouflage! It's not like I grew _boobs_ or anything—" 

"Well—"

"—NO!" a strident yell, but it wasn't in response to the interjection. Instead, it was for the pair of familiar olive drab leather pants that came flying out of the wardrobe and into the pile, "and I'm mad that you lied to me about binning those! You lie to me about those pants, you presume that you can tell me what I want, and you've been… _stabling_ me for all this time, if I am to believe you, which I still don't. I do believe it's well within my rights to request. The Princess demands a royal vacation." 

"I thought I did throw those out. Okay. It's hard not to give in to you when you're at once being a hypocrite and adorable. But the thing is, when—" 

He was interrupted again just as he steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, trying to eke out some sort of explanation. Dom came rushing out and up to him, now donning a glittery blue t-shirt and holding out an unassuming white jacket. "Where did you get this?" The sort of voice parents used when they discovered household contraband. It made the Doctor immediately incline himself to not divulge any information, on pure instinct. 

But what was it? Just a jacket. He shot Dom a look suggesting he was stark raving mad, and plucked at it. Belted, double-breasted, immaculately cut and tailored. A flourish of aviator style was in the less severe of its boxy lines. Inside of the collar, just below the shoulder line, there was a little tag that read "CHANEL". 

"Oh! Oh, Gabrielle. That is, Coco. She left it." 

"Coco. Coco Chanel." 

Nod, nod, nod. Nothing special, really. "Yeah. Nineteen…let's see, nine…teen…twenty five? Six? I think. I don't even remember, she was very adamant that I take some scarves, too. Lovely woman. Eccentric, possibly even more so than myself which is saying something, but very enchanting." 

Keeping his eyes on Matt, Dom shrugged the jacket on to test it out, making the move into almost an act of defiance. It felt a little tight across the shoulders, but otherwise…

He lifted the lapel to his nose and breathed in. If he was going to smell like a woman, he would be content to smell like this. "Okay, maybe I believe you just a little bit."

"Looks sharp. Very gay, but sharp." 

He would have to take the Doctor's word for it, since there wasn't one mirror to be found in the wardrobe. Not considerably hard to believe, considering the way its supposed owner usually dressed himself. "Can't resist, can you?"

"Well, I'm not judging." 

"No, you're _staring._ " A smirk played on his lips, and he faced the Doctor akimbo. Caught. 

"Well, you're…that outfit, it's all very…fitted." A tremble of amusement radiated between them, at once bridging the gulf of tension that had been growing. 

"Thank you, Doctor." 

"Oh, now that you get to be a flirt, you're buying into the name, even?" They laughed together. "Say it again."

Though he rolled his eyes at first when the order was given (possibly because it was an order), he knew an opportunity when he heard one. Leaning forward, hands on his hips: "Doctor." 

Laughing madly, the Doctor fell out of the kneel he'd been in and back. Then he snapped up and over his knees, leaning on his hands and shivering as if the word gave him an intense pleasure. They laughed as if nothing were amiss about the situation; just another day. "Now like Marilyn Monroe." 

"Come off it!" Dom flicked out the belt in his hands and the Doctor grabbed for it, missing and getting a handful of air as his whole face pinched in a responsive giggle. Dom slid the snakeskin-printed belt around his waist carefully, and while he was looking down to buckle it he grinned and moaned, in a voice decidedly not like his own: _"Doctor…"_

Matt always loved his Marilyn Monroe impression, since the first time he'd busted it out drunken at Chris' 22nd birthday party. From the overwrought American accent to the affected breathlessness, it was shockingly accurate considering his usually deep register. He watched Matt, now the Doctor, nothing really different to the untrained eye, letting off a peal of uncontrollable laughter that was completely indistinguishable from the Mr. Bellamy he knew. "You have to admit it, it's sort of ridiculous name." 

"So is Princess Dominique XVI." He wheezed between giggles. 

"That is _not_ my name!" 

"Aaaaand we're back to the attitude." But Dom truly was back to it, and the Doctor only watched as he left the room in the direction of the main flight deck. He rolled his eyes, and then over himself to stand up and follow. 

"Come on," Dom sneered when they were together once more, searching around for a window or even another open doorway, finding none. The Doctor had even locked the front door on him, "I want to do space things. Like shooting down Death Stars or having phaser battles, or…"

"Or rescuing powerful renegade Princesses?" 

"Don't start." 

"Start? It started. Like I said when you tried to leave the first time, you started it! And this isn't a sci-fi movie, I'm sorry to inform you. I actually see very few explosions and cause even fewer. Intentionally. I don't cause many intentionally." 

"But you love it when stuff blows up in the movies." 

"Well, because in movies it's _awesome._ In the TARDIS is can actually be a little hazardous." He twirled once and fell into a chair in front of what appeared to be a control panel but was laid out more like a keyboard. With controlled bravado his fingers played over the buttons (keys?), obviously adept at operating the thing. Dom walked to him and seemed content to watch for a few moments. 

"You're going to take me somewhere." 

"Am I?" Again, the tone presented him made his instincts fire in defensiveness, in impudence. "I keep trying to tell you, Dom, but you're not letting me finish: it's not that simple. You're—" 

Dom threw his arms up and turned around. "Earlier you were lecturing _me_ on not being fun!" 

"It's not about being fun, it's about putting you deliberately into harm's way, which, though it might actually be loads of fun now that I think about it, is not what I promised the Dolexari Empire I would do!" He finish off a few keystrokes in rhythm with his words, and banged the keyboard as he stood up. His patience obviously was wearing thin. At least he'd gotten to finish a sentence, that time. 

"Even when we're on a fucking spaceship you're a shut-in! I don't care if it's a galactic rest stop, I demand that you set us down!"

Dom's temerity and entitlement made him laugh for a bit as he walked toward him, flipping a switch in the central control unit that pumped and sputtered and spun with gears upon gears. "I am not a shut-in! That is the most—" 

"No, maybe not," again with the interruptions. The Doctor's face fell immediately, and he set his jaw in steely consideration of the way he would explain to the Dolexari what exactly happened to their Princess and whether or not it would even matter if he were castrated along the way, "you're just a pouty, antisocial little wimp who waits for fun to find him!" 

"I beg to fucking differ!" His eyes were actually starting to blaze, and hundreds of years of galactic living blacked out in the face of the time most recent, the time spent with _this._ "Especially about the wimp part. Be careful." 

Dom walked back a few paces, putting distance between them although his face was impassive. "Three nights ago, then. I was practically begging you to come out with us, and what did you do? Hole up with your bird. Painfully. Boring. Now that I have you out in the great wide open I expected maybe we could have a little fun again, but no! What, even at the ass-end of the universe, she's got you wrapped around her finger?" 

The Doctor started to advance on him, becoming less of the Doctor and more of Matt, losing a little of that control he'd displayed when Dom had inspected him earlier. He glanced over, hit something on a control panel with the side of his fist, and pointed. "Watch it there, mate." It was a grim warning, one that was not to be ignored.

Of course, Dom didn't ignore it. He charged at it like a bull, in fact. "Oh, suddenly serious! You can pick me up and literally pull me out of my life – which I liked as it was, thank you very much – and haul me around, even call me your _cargo_ , and I try to be nice about it! But I can't take issue with your keeper?" 

"I'm telling you," he kicked a box and grabbed at a lever over his head, which practically took a pull-up before it lowered for him. Dom continued to walk backwards and the Doctor continued to close in on him, their path an endless circle as it always was, "choose your next words very carefully." 

"It doesn't even matter," Dom laughed, beaming and guileless as it sank in, "I guess it doesn't mean a thing if I'm just being dropped off on some planet I've never heard of. You either do that or you kick me out now, or I wake up from this mad dream! Either way, I've got nothing to lose and it's a good excuse to finally let it out: I'm. Fucking. Jealous." 

The room suddenly lurched and a deafening sound of metal crunching metal covered half of his final word. Machinery squealed as Dom went flying back against the rail, his feet quite lost beneath him. Whatever wasn't bolted down (thankfully, most things were) suffered a similar fate, including the Doctor. Usually he laughed at moments like these. Usually he laughed at everything, honestly, but this was one of those rare moments in which nothing was funny. When a bit of smoke from the central core cleared, Dom was left with a new throbbing pain in his back and a wiry little man on top of him. Nothing really unheard of, that, when smoke was clearing and Matt was involved. 

But this was the Doctor, and the Doctor was Not Amused. Nor was he angry, exactly. Dom waited for him to remove himself, to adjust the braces over his thin white t-shirt. In fact, Dom studied him the entire time as he untangled himself and stood up silently, meaning to stick with his face but unable to control his line of sight as the Doctor turned from him and wiped his hands over his arse. 

Jealous, yes. Also not above ogling, apparently. 

It was one of those pointy, punctuation-mark looks that the Doctor threw him before walking off. Not a hand offered to help him up, not an apology for the crash, not even a quick explanation. Just a look, and his back, and then his disappearance. Feet treading noisily on the metal and the grating. Dom coughed, and then coughed again, and then couldn't seem to stop until his eyes were watering and he was only halfway pulled up. 

"I need some fresh air," he croaked, a note of shame creeping in as he remembered the verbal tear he'd gone on before the jostling and minor catastrophe. All he heard in response to his words was a bit of shuffling and a slamming door. 

"Matt?" Clutching to the railing, careful not to harm the jacket which, he'd forgotten in his moment of insolence, was his magic belief token, he pulled himself up. "I mean, Doctor?" His voice echoed strangely, as if the Doctor had been enough to fill the room when he was present. "Hello?" 

The coat rack. The jacket was gone. That would account for the shuffling. The door. That would account for the slam. He half-expected to have been locked in, but the pull clicked up surprisingly easy in his hand, and he coughed softly one more time. When he emerged from the TARDIS, it was just in time to see the Doctor's long fingers pull the zip of his red bomber up to the neck. A quick, dismissive glance was all he gave Dom before clutching his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels. Words failed. There was nothing to take back, nothing to add. It was up to him to sort it out. A sigh tore from him, but thankfully no more coughing. He turned to look out on whatever the Doctor was facing. 

Breath was hard to find, suddenly, and Dom detoured his fingers just before they went stereotypically to his open mouth. Ran them through his hair instead. 

"You can say it's impressive. It's not like I made it or anything." 

"Impressive. Yeah," fucking beautiful. Twin moons rising up on the horizon line, and a setting star large and smoldering red.

"Where are we?" 

"Dom," the Doctor's voice was small and calm, trying to sort out whether or not Dom even deserved to be brought here after what had transpired. But of course he did. He always would. And that's what tore him apart and caused the poisonous looks to pass in Dom's direction. Thinking of those he'd miss from his old life. Thinking of whom he wouldn't miss. He didn't like feeling guilty, "where do you think we are? Even you can get this one without much of a hint, and I can't say that for a good 99.9999% of the places I could have taken you."

Dom's gaze bounced around, taking in the details. Red ground. Red star. Mountains in the distance. Moons, plural. Giant valley gaping below them, a river wound through it leading to a vast, sparkling, achingly beautiful ocean. Even the ocean shone red from the star's reflection. It couldn't be. 

"Cydonia." The word wasn't spoken so much as it willed itself from his lips, almost a whisper. Then he chuckled as his heart swelled at the sound of it, spoken like that. The Doctor's face lit up with a satisfied and only minutely sheepish smile. "Cydonia!" 

"About two billion years before you were a twinkle in a Dolexari scientist's eye."

It was time to start believing. "But how--?" Dom held his throat and breathed in what felt like perfectly normal air, shocked also that he just happened to have dressed to perfection for the climate. 

"Oh, that. Don't think about it. Climate's not really all that off, considering the solar system's infancy, but the TARDIS does keep us in check." The Doctor looked up and around, his expression giving way to one of giddy impatience again. A smile tugged at Dom's lips to see this, and finally he grinned, forgetting their tiff, forgetting it all. Believing. It was something Matt had a tendency to make him do, so often, even when he didn't really want to. Maybe he was a Time Lord and maybe Dom was a Princess. It was all ceasing to matter.

There was just here, just this. They were set to play Reading and Leeds in less than two weeks, but that was only an afterthought. Fuck it, for the moment. This was Mars.

"Well, come on, then. Let's go to town!" 

"Town?" By the time he reacted, the Doctor was gone skipping and hooting down the worn path a few yards off, below the line of the bluff. 

"Doctor?" He called after him, and paused. "Doctor!" Dom could only be grateful, as he gave chase, that he'd chosen Converse instead of the matador boots he'd been eyeing.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a very large door. A very large, very tall, very angular and dark and ornamented door which Dom could only assume was a door because the Doctor was knocking on it. The whole town seemed lost in translation like that, actually, and as they'd wandered further in, the alien feeling of things began to set in at last. There was something vaguely human, vaguely Earth-like, about the whole place, just like the door, but instead of a handle or a doorknob there were just long, thick grooves in the center, like windows without glass. Same for the buildings: tall, garish things that stood much higher than they did wide, more like facsimiles than actual purposeful residences or businesses. Comically large, despite it all. Disproportionate and grimly appointed, like a macabre Disney theme park. 

"Is this a ghost town?" Dom asked the Doctor, sidling close as he picked up on a strange mixture of scents in the air, some of which he'd never even known before. Somewhere between iron and cheap beer, but far more organic. The Doctor noticed his face contorting as he sniffed. 

"No, the Cydonians just like to keep inside, is all." 

"Cydonians? Martians, you mean? Little green men?" 

"Hardly," he actually sounded a little bit frightened, and when it made Dom visibly worried, he babbled quickly into a follow-up statement, "but a lovely, lovely race! One with whom I've spent enough time that I'm sure our presence won't be questioned. Or contested. As it might be, if I didn't know them so well." 

He knocked again, this time more intently. 

"So…we're on Mars, but the Cydonians aren't actually Martian? You said this was when?" 

"About two billion years prior to what you can consider your present. There never were any Martian people. There was a colony. The Cydonians. Normally you can't actually trust them, or at least you can't trust the group from whom they've seceded and cut ties – we slur them as the Reptilians, as do the Cydonians, because the Cydonians took rather a liking to human culture after they seceded, and sort of took to fighting a battle of mischief with the Reptilians of the future – to be proper, the actual name of the race can't be pronounced by the human tongue, so it's just as well. The Cydonians are the ones who messed about with human history, dropping off technological breadcrumbs, visiting ancient peoples, as long as it was prior to recorded history they were so happy to get involved, because—" he turned and sighed at the door before banging on it again, then turning back around to face Dom, "—because it was so easy to screw around with the Reptilians, to advance humankind and hinder the…well, the Agenda." 

"This sounds incredibly familiar." Dom rolled his eyes and watched the door, expecting a giant talking lizard to be appearing at any moment, pretending not to be fazed by the consideration. 

"Well, I'll admit I talked about it here and there, but it was always with my eye on the Reptilians, you see." 

"The Cydonians are time travelers, too, then? Just jumping ahead a billion and some years, messing about with the human race? The pyramids and the Aztecs and like, right?" 

"That stuff, yeah," the Doctor's head bobbled a bit as he smirked a response to Dom's perception, hiding a reveal of his own until he could no longer suppress it, "ah, no use keeping it bottled up. That was all me. I came here, I helped them out, I shuttled them around. What a fun time of my life, here, I'll never forget! Heh! The only thing that had me go leave was a sudden insatiable urge to visit the Pleiades, and you see where that got me." 

Sagging his shoulders in the slightly-too-fitted Chanel jacket, Dom made a little skeptical noise, smiling though he did. "You built the pyramids." 

"Oh, no! No, never! Clever, yes, smarter than anything you could imagine, yes I'm that, but I – physical labor? Are you mad? I was more like a ferryman, more of an enabler." 

"Why would you have--?" 

They were interrupted when a few loud skittering noises, followed by a chorus of clicking, scratching sounds, came from just behind the door. Through one of the long grooves came a single, gigantic black claw, and it hooked on the opening to pull it back. Dom didn't have time to focus on how ingenious it was, and hopped behind the Doctor. He tried to hide himself, clutching slim hips instinctively and at once realizing there wasn't actually much to hide behind. The Doctor laughed, glanced over his shoulder at his jumpy companion, and opened up his arms to the occupant of the house (was it a house?) 

"Aaahhh, Desdetellaica! My loooo—" he stopped short, tilting his head at the creature in front of them, who was equal parts praying mantis, gigantic ant, and twitchy-tailed lizard. Six pair of eyes, graduated down the center of a long triangular head, blinked out of time, focusing an array of compound vision on the duo. The Doctor looked confused, and then a little embarrassed. Dom clenched his eyes shut, convinced they were about to be devoured, "my apologies. Is Desdetellaica about?" 

The ten-foot-tall insect moved aside, its mighty thorax twisting out of the way gracefully as it chirped and chattered, before Dom finally began to hear speech behind it. Like it had suddenly begun speaking in English. Not the English-English he was used to, however, but a strangely accented English, somewhere between Italian and the James Bond version of Russian. Dom cleaned out his ears, shocked. The Doctor regarded this with some amusement. "Desi, remember strange little Time man? He is back. You told me to tell you. You told me to tell you to keep him from—" 

The thorax twisted back further, as what appeared to be a copper pot full of still-steaming and possibly-edible things flew between both of their heads; Dom ducked, the Doctor only leaned unimpressed to the side, laughing. 

Another series of clicks and strange noises went up from the doorway, volume growing until they screeched at each other. What Dom heard from this exchange was like a pair of emergency sirens bleating back and forth. It could not be over soon enough. Eventually the creature who had opened the door moved aside and back into the building, several dozen legs making a quite unsettling sound on the surface. The Doctor explained, obviously quite happy with Dom being attached to his person. "Sorry you had to see that. Also, sorry I didn't tell you about the language barrier – the TARDIS translates for you, you see. But that's the problem, with Cydonians. They adopted human mannerisms and culture to an extent – cultural scavengers really. Problem being, especially in later years, after all the adventure, that cultural amalgamation gave way to something not entirely unlike feisty Mediterranean women." 

Dom, still kneeling behind him, dug his fingers into the Doctor's lower thighs, not having expected this. "Is that…so?" 

"Oh, oh yes. And I know you're wondering why I spent so much time here—" 

"Why are we here, anyway? Do we really have to rub elbows with your old friends?" 

"I would be nice to talk up a few allies in case anyone follows us around here, after your whereabouts." Oh yeah. The political shadowplay. Dom had conveniently forgotten about that. "We're here to show you a proper Cydonian sunrise. We're here to have some fun. Here to say we spent the night on Mars! Dom, I have to say – oh, is that you? _Desdetellaica!_ " 

Dom peeked out from behind the Doctor, holding on to his legs more possessively as another half-mantis, half-lizard appeared, blinking eyes slowly, probably scowling if Dom knew how to read that from anything other than the overwhelming discomfort in the air. The Doctor kept his arms outstretched until the silence became too long and awkward to bear. "So I guess you won't be putting your skin on, then." 

A sigh, deep and frustrated but still a little bit sensual, emanated from the bug-creature. Dom watched like a child clutching on to his headmistress' skirts, agape as the giant alien shook and blurred, shook and blurred, fuzzed a bit in the air, and with an entirely unattractive, protracted squelching sound became a more accessible, humanoid figure. Not hard on the eyes, either. Petite, female, buxom, brunette, fine-featured and dark eyed. 

Dom had to clear his throat. "Well, it's easy to see where you got your taste in women." He tried to bite back his jealousy. 

"Yeah, admittedly that really took root here." Well, at least he wasn't denying it.

Desdemona – Tellico? Desdemababadingdong? What was her name? Dom couldn't even begin to remember. She was speaking now in that Bond Girl Eastern European accent, full lips moving to the words even. She flipped her wavy dark hair over one shoulder. "You realize this is like making me put bag over my head." 

"You look _lovely_ , darling." And she did. 

Jealous again. "You brought me here so I could meet your old girlfriends? Is there a bug girl for me to sleep with?" 

"Don't call them bugs, Dominic, that is very rude!" The Doctor laughed, nonetheless. "I'm not here to sleep with Desdetellaica, if that's what bothers you. She happens to own the inn." 

"Oh," Desi (that's what the other bug had called her, right? A nickname, Dom supposed. It was so much easier) narrowed her eyes and focused past the Doctor to look at him. He felt caught in the headlights of a beautiful, in-control, and far smarter person than he was. He took the opportunity to rise to his feet and slide him arms around the Doctor's waist, which made the slightly smaller man (alien? Whatever) laugh uncomfortably. But he wasn't rebuffed. Dom rested his head on the narrow shoulder and watched Desi watching him, inspecting him, drawing back slightly when she obviously found what she was looking for, "this is the—" 

"My new companion, yes! You know me, love," he laughed uncomfortably again, "someone new," he snapped, "just as before. You're not still bitter are you?" 

"Not at all. I run shop. I care for father and hive mother. I make nourishments until I throw them at your head." 

The Doctor turned, Dom stepping with him, and glanced down at the pot rolling useless on the cobbled street. "Sorry about the nourishments, yes. Why were you throwing it at my head, though?" 

"You abandon me!" She flipped her hair over one shoulder and stormed into the building. The Doctor took a step forward, though Dom seemed adamant to stop the advance, shaking his head. Matt grabbed him by the hands that were still attached to his waist and pulled him forward, sighing. They walked awkwardly in tandem through the massive threshold and into the sparsely appointed living space. A shop, had she said this was? There were things Dom recognized – larger implements, tools, even fabrics – but much of what lined the walls was impossible to identify. 

Desi kept going. "You abandon me in middle of night and expect I will take you back with no words!" 

"I'm not asking to be taken back, Desi." Now that the Doctor had used the nickname as well, Dom felt more comfortable attaching it to her. She seemed like a Desi. In this form, at least. 

"Obvious, now. Now that I see you with," she gave him a strange expression and waved at Dom. Dom extracted one hand from the Doctor's waist and wiggled his fingers, unsure of everything except the fact that something was really, incredibly flying over his head, "it makes sense now. You here for excursion, yes?" 

"Excursion?" 

"Vacation." She pronounced the word carefully.

"Yes," Dom answered at the same time that Matt said, "No." They looked at each other, faces close. Desi chuckled. 

"I can arrange room upstairs, vacant for some time. You love view of sunrise. Your bed, still. People love to see strange human-sized bed." She gave Dom a very strange look indeed as she passed; if he didn't know better, he would say it was jealousy combined with pride.

~*~

"I'm just exhausted." Dom toed off his shoes and socks together, landing on the mattress face down. The permeating scent of iron and beer gave way to an unaccustomed freshness, better than laundry detergent but not quite anything he'd known before. _Martian turn-down service, just what the Doctor ordered._ The thought was funny enough in his mind that he considered repeating it, but the Doctor was on the opposite end of the room, pulling open a series of long, thick, chain-link window curtains. It was hard not to look. The landscape revealed when they were open was, indeed, enough to keep him awake just a bit longer.

Dom propped up onto his elbows and looked out on the ocean in the distance, glittering with the reflection of the stars and the moons. Blackness of night and brilliance of satellites. "Phobos and Deimos, correct?" 

"They will be, to humans, sometime down the line. For now they're known as….I can't pronounce it, never mind," he grinned, moving away from the open windows and the panoramic view, stretching his arms over his head, a generous sliver of ghostly white and deliciously bare stomach showing when he did, "I'm tired, too, I've had a rough time getting used to this transition, as it were. Thanks for coming along." 

"Um," tucking his hands up under his chest, Dom decided not to be a confrontational fool about any of the myriad things he could bring up there, such as not having had much say in the matter, "no. Thanks for putting up with me. I was a real bastard back there." 

"It's okay, mate, really it is. You just touched on a few things I wasn't ready to think about, is all."

Try as he might to think through his own ruminations on the matter, Dom watched as the Doctor slid his braces off his shoulders and couldn't really think of anything else. A nice shake of his head, and he felt right to let the intrusive thoughts fade. They'd be sharing the bed, so no use getting too worked up. It would only end in embarrassment on one end or the other. "Not feeling so combative, now," he began sheepishly, "if you want to go into all the security briefings and whatnot." 

"Oh, that? It's already done. We've gone out. Desi knows, and now it's just a matter of seeing what finds us, or tries to find us, before we can get you back home." 

"How in the world—?" 

The Doctor stepped over and sat on the edge of the bed, a thinking look on his face as he traced patterns on the sheets. "About that. What I kept trying to tell you? About how your camouflage has expired, Dominic? It wasn't just me trying to be difficult. It really has some consequences, and I don't know how embarrassing you'll find it to be when I've explained." 

Dom turned his head to the side, sat up, gathered himself in a little kneel on the bed, and felt his chest. "Nope. No boobs." 

"That's not what I mean," the Doctor laughed, "I mean…that is…a mirror. We need a mirror." 

Dom realized suddenly that he hadn’t truly looked into a mirror since waking up in the TARDIS. Skepticism and a wash of apprehension clenched his features as he waited for the Doctor to bounce off the bed and root around the room in a bit of a frenzy. Finally he returned, holding a small hand mirror.

"Remember to ask it who's the fairest of them all, Princess," he snickered, a joke to which Dom was far more receptive than before. Yawning, the day's events catching up to him, he lifted it and inspected his reflection. What he expected to find, he had no idea. Long, luxurious lashes? Permanent eyeliner? Ruby red lips? There was no telling. 

A good thirty seconds, and he still hadn't figured out anything except that he really needed to shave. The Doctor eventually came up behind him, put one knee on the bed next to Dom's hip, and placed two fingers on the side of his neck, near his pulse point. Dom's eyes trained on the spot, trying to withhold the little gulp that wanted to follow it. The closeness was making something stir inside of him, something he'd been beating back for a good while in their "real" life. 

There, beneath the crux of his ear and his jawline, an odd little mark was actually….glowing faintly. "What the--?" He leaned closer to the mirror, face twisting in confusion as he examined the mark. It was green, then a slightly more bluish-green, as it pulsed on the surface of his skin. He touched it, brushing the Doctor's fingers when he did. "Was it…is it a tattoo, or…? What is this on my neck!?" 

"Now, don't go off, here. It's a beacon, an identifier. How do you think I got the signal to take you home again? They don't have parcel service for the cosmos. You had this in you the whole time, but you're the only thing the Dolexari can really contact without fear of being traced. It's an interesting mark, isn't it? 

The way the Doctor looked at it almost pleasantly made Dom recoil. "How can you say that, it looks like a black light tattoo or something! Besides, what does it even say? Why give me a badge that screams "hey look I'm a missing…Pr—"…" he was about to say it, but stopped, "you know?" 

"A good question. But that's not really what it is. The Dolexari, I've told you, have been around since long before most alien civilizations. Imagine Earth, if you will. The Royals? Our Royals? How the entire world is obsessed with them for some reason, even though they're not their Royals? Same thing here." 

"Here, literally, here? The Cydonians know who I am?" 

"Oh, sure!" 

"So what's the symbol, a crest or something?" 

The Doctor was suddenly silent, and pulled both legs up onto the bed, hugging them to his chest. Once again, he was chewing on a fingernail without really chewing on it. Nervous, avoidant, unable to keep still. Not exactly traits that Dom wasn't used to, but in this particular case the switch had been too obvious. He reached over and poked him. "Doctor. What does the symbol mean?" 

Dom's grin was open to possibility and eager to know, and it broke the Doctor's heart to know that keeping the secret from him had the potential to muck things up far more than simply telling him. He simply wasn't in the mood for all the fallout and explanation tonight. "I'm in the mood for a nice restful night's sleep, I'd say. How about you?" 

"No dice," Dom laid out next to the Doctor, and poked him again, and then grabbed one of his loose braces and pulled it back until it snapped, "come on, tell me? So, it probably says I'm a Princess, correct? I guess I can live with that. At least I'm not a lumbering bug creature." 

"It says you're engaged to be married," he mumbled as quickly as he could, "It says: Crown Princess Dominique XVI, daughter of Queen Dolexaxirah XXIII, ruler of the Crystal Halls and the Ten Palaces, betrothedtoTheDoctor." 

Dom was silent. It was like all the air in the room was sucked out, all the scent and all the life, and was just replaced with a heavy, overbearing sense of awkwardness.

As was his talent, the Doctor only added to the strangeness of the situation by elaborating: "Usually there's a much more impressive name, there, that you would be betrothed to, but I may or may not have sort of in a way wound up intended to the Princess of the Dolexari royal family about 500,000 years before she – he – you – were even born. Which explains why I even agreed to the bodyguard mission. Didn't have much a choice, did I? I had in fact quite a duty. I was a little put upon at first, sure, but you grew up to be pretty enough despite the gender handicap." 

Dom remained silent. 

"That actually, somehow, came out sounding even more awkward than it actually in fact is. Especially considering that, well, I've always had a suspicion that you sort of maybe have a thing for me."

The silence was broken and it didn't take much. "You're a wanker, is what!" Dom grabbed a pillow from the head of the bed and turned away from the Doctor, pretending to put him out of sight and out of mind. 

"What, because I looked after you all this time? Times you don't even know about, times you could have been killed and I did my noble duty without even a need for thanks? That makes me a wanker?" 

"No, that makes you…alien. The whole assuming I've always wanted you is what makes you a wanker! I'm not saying anything else, can we sleep, now?" 

"You can figure out how to deal with this in your own time, but you will need to deal with it!" 

"Fine! I suppose so! Just keep your ego in check, meanwhile, if that's even possible." 

"I make no promises!" The Doctor responded angrily, unhooked and doffed his braces, and slid on the extreme edge of the bed away from Dom, folding his hands over his stomach as if ready to sleep in a coffin. 

They exchanged a few more grunts and breaths of frustration. 

"And you'd better not be _spooning_ me in the morning, I know how this sharing a bed thing gets with you. All too well," Dom mumbled into his pillow. 

The Doctor did not respond, although it was another thing about which he could make no guarantees.


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor didn't need to sleep, not really. The feeling of sleep, though, was entirely agreeable as a thing he'd grown accustomed to in recent years. On this particular night which led far too quickly into morning, however, his mind protested. There was too much to go over, too many contingencies, too much history and research to sort through that might give them the proper footing on which to be two steps ahead of whatever might be out to get the Dolexari crown. 

The Jhinzi. Did they even know how to manipulate time? They were so secretive, so xenophobic, that not even the Doctor had ever gotten so much as a wink at them. And that was after centuries of trying. They'd always been a race obsessed with conquest, so their bid for the 4th star system wasn't entirely out of the blue on a galactic scale. But to what lengths were they prepared to go? By all accounts, they were like spiders – if you happened to wander into a Jhinzi trap unawares, it was game over. But it one came prepared…

He closed his eyes tightly and sighed. Not just now. More was yet to be known, exhumed, extracted from the appropriate parties. He couldn't go flying Dom home all frantic-like, not if he meant to stay true to all those words about keeping him – _them_ – safe. Thanks to the time on Earth, he'd missed out on some crucial movement from the Jhinzi, and getting filled in and updated required a bit of legwork. Or TARDIS-work, since that seemed more appropriate. Though any of his associates would contend that he had a tendency to run, which meant legs, which did, actually, translate to legwork…

Again, he had allowed his mind to wander. He shifted fitfully and rubbed a hand on his forehead. To whom would it be safe enough to go? Why had he even agreed on this idiotic mission in the first place? Why hadn't he disappeared after Queen Bearepontielle II had tapped him as a suitable future mate for her great-great-great-great…how many "greats"? Didn’t sodding matter. The betrothal had been less of an honor and more of an endowment to the Dolexari Empire. If he'd run from the responsibility, they would have killed him. And oh, they could have. 

Besides, there was the stupid fact that the stupid empire was in stupid peril now and he had never been able to resist a civilization in distress. 

"Oh…" he muttered in soft surprise, jostled back to his technical senses, as Dom rolled over from his end of the bed and, moaning comfortably in his sleep, tucked himself up next to the Doctor with practiced familiarity, "oh. Okay." 

As if conditioned even in his sleep to put up with his best friend's running mouth, Dom made a little disapproving noise and adjusted his head on the Doctor's chest until he was back to deep, comfortable slumber. He'd never picked up on two heartbeats before. Sometimes the Doctor wondered whether he was just a little bit dense in that regard. Maybe he had just never wanted to admit that he was listening. It was a bit gay, after all, listening to another man's heartbeat. Pointing out a flaw in it even implied concern, god forbid. 

A long moment passed during which he debated whether or not to start running his fingers through the tempting head of blond hair resting against him. 

There was also the stupid fact that the stupid Princess was impossible to despise, no matter how many times he'd tried. Without really meaning to, he started to hum as he laid one arm over Dom's curving back and crooked the other up under his own head elbow pointing up. Once he picked up on the familiar, though unconscious, melody his mind had chosen, he smirked and continued with it. About halfway into what could effectively be called a song – _that_ song – he felt Dom stir, and then felt the leg wrapped around his own twitching in time with a silent beat. Sure, he was pretending to still be asleep, but he could never resist the urge to keep rhythm, somehow. 

"Wake up, you'll miss the sunrise." 

"Nnngggg. Don't want to." This was actually far less intelligible than most people would be able to glean, but the Doctor was versed in even the rare and impossible dialect of Sleepy Dominic Howard. The words were more like vibrations, deep and just barely on his lips, more of something the Doctor read by the way they thrummed over his chest rather than an articulated sound his ears registered and translated. 

"Okay, but you do understand that this is most of the reason I brought you here?" 

"I don't care, let me sleep." 

Now, Dom was no stranger to this position. Though there was usually some sort of residual alcoholic side-effect to blame, they'd often woken up in tangles they were hard-pressed to explain and stopped being embarrassed about after a certain number of years. Neither was particularly fond of sleeping alone. It was one of the few situations, after all, during which a lack of faculty could be blamed for a lapse in the proper hetero-normative social practices of the human male. It fascinated the Doctor, how such an act of physical affection simply wasn't allowed under any waking watch. Rules. Social morays. All seemingly without rhyme or reason, especially since humans tended to ignore their subconscious attractions altogether while, at the same time, maintaining that they were more than simply animals. Very, very, infuriatingly repressed animals, maybe. 

He was forced, then, to play into the role of the instigator, the pusher and follower of rules and social morays – but always with an eye on manipulation of them. "Fine, we'll just _cuddle_ a little longer." 

Humiliation was still a powerful motivator. And given the apt opening for attack, either could always gain the upper hand on the other. 

Dom's eyes opened and he glared up at the Doctor, who couldn't resist giggling. "Maybe I'm comfortable. Be quiet!" But he was awake, now. The Doctor continued to laugh, and lifted a finger in presentation of a point. 

"I would like you to notice that I am _not_ , in fact, spooning you!" 

"Shut up. Seriously. Stop laughing, you're—" but Dom was laughing now, too, "—shit, you're waking me up!" 

Snapping into sudden comprehension of the situation, Dom reached up and over the Doctor, biting his bottom lip determinedly as he wrestled the pillow from beneath his head and proceeded to smack him in the giggling face with it. 

There were both awake, laughing brightly at this point, and by the time Dom crawled to straddle and pin the Doctor to the bed for maximum effect, the sun was peeking over the horizon. Just as he lifted another pillow high over his head, a blast of light flooded the room and caught him breathless and off-guard. 

The pillow the Doctor was swinging in the same moment connected with his chest, knocking Dom off, but he didn't even seem distracted.

"Sorry," the Doctor laughed, watching Dom already crawling back over him, crawling all the way to gather on the edge of the mattress and watch.

"Fuck…"

Satisfied, the Doctor crossed his arms behind his head and his feet at the ankles, watching Dom's back in shadow as he drank in the sight. It was, indeed, enough to make a grown man forget himself to the majesty of natural grandeur. It still took the Doctor himself some effort not to be overcome. A little terrifying, really, that the infant star was so gigantic and lurid in front of them, rippling in the Martian sky that was so impossibly clear. After a few minutes of just watching, Dom let out a little noise, in his own world, not meaning for it to be heard by anyone else. 

By this time he was confident that the Cydonian sunrise had captivated Dom in the same way it had first captivated him, stolen him from and frozen him out of any other thought process, made him understand completely and in the bottom of his hearts why no one would want to give this up. Sometimes, on Earth, when the summer days were immensely long, the sky bloating with humidity, the sun would give the illusion of being larger, more potent, but it still always seemed like a pale old imitation by comparison. 

He rolled and scooted closer to the silent Dom, not daring to interrupt him with words. 

Why was this urge gripping him now? Really, why would this urge grip him ever? For so many years he had spent inordinate amounts of time convincing himself that Dominic Howard was a thing very exclusive and very removed from his double life as a Time Lord. Crises used to make gears turn, of course, would make him wonder what would happen when he had to explain that they'd eventually be picking out a china pattern, but it had been far easier to repress thoughts of being his galactic fiancé. What hadn't been simple was resisting this friendly, effortless mode of flirtation, of closeness. Dom flirted with everything, a quirk of genuine modesty aiding his ability to charm the pants off of whomever he set his sights on. 

That charm was hard for him to turn off, the Doctor knew, and in normal cases when such a thing spilled over into an intimate, open-minded friendship, lines had to be dramatically defined lest they be crossed. They often weren't defined in their very particular case, and it had been that way for years, so lines were crooked and blurry and all over the place, forgotten for the most part. Matt and Dom – the Doctor and Dom – the relationship was odd. Something the Doctor appreciated enough to stomach for what felt like five lifetimes, but still…odd.

For instance, he was sitting up behind Dom before he even realized he was doing it, sorting his hair out, playing attentively with the blond highlights and the slightly darker parts, pulling and smoothing them out of an unfortunate early morning mop. He paused imperceptibly, but Dom still didn't say a word. There wasn't a "what are you doing?" or a swat at his hand, just quiet and closeness. 

The urge had its grip, and now it was pulling. Inexplicable but undeniable, irrational but so very, very human because of that. All those years playing human (to the best of his ability, at least) had taken a toll on the Doctor's clear and superior judgment. So he found his nose against Dom's neck, ready to argue that he was powerless to stop himself. His face lingered between the glittery blue fabric and the skin, cushioned on one side by hair, otherwise unprotected from any slapping that might be coming his way. 

A tension rolled through Dom's strong shoulders for only a moment as he took in a breath that was more revelatory than shocked. Silence beckoned the Doctor and the urge pulled him right along. 

Stupid Dolexari Empire. Stupid matriarchy full of perfect genetics and selective royal breeding that produced even unintentionally male Princesses with irresistibly seductive qualities. They were probably the qualities Dom didn’t even dwell on, the little imperceptible things that maybe only the Doctor focused on. He turned his head very slightly toward the neck, and pursed his lips against the tattoo on the skin under Dom's jaw line, nose scratched by stubble when he did. 

He knew this was going to hurt when he said it, but it had to be said now: "I'm sorry." 

No, it didn't need an explanation, and Dom was certainly not going to ask for one. There were so many things he could potentially be apologizing for, so many that he left it in Dom's power to decide whether to accept it as a blanket apology if he accepted it at all. 

The silence kept beckoning him. He moved his lips only a little on the sweetly salty skin, and felt Dom inhale, exhale, inhale again with a most tranquil slump of his shoulders. Eventually a response to his words came in the form of a hand on the back of his head, Dom reaching up and holding him in place, justifying the urge, accepting the apology. His fingers, long and strong and yet still a bit delicate, moved in the short, dark hair. 

The Doctor opened the one eye that was not obscured in his position and watched the Sun, still shimmering in every conceivable shade of red and orange and yellow as it continued to rise. Before he knew it would no longer be in his control to do so, he withdrew his lips and cleared his throat softly in a bid to bring them both back to reality. That is, assuming Dom accepted this as reality with the same ease that he had accepted the Doctor's – Matt's – the Doctor's apology and the kiss on his neck. "You can shower here. Again, this room was mine not too long ago. Well, not too long ago in the grand scheme of it all. Wash up. Shave." 

Dom let his hand fall off of the Doctor's head, a little defeat implicit in the motion. This, the Doctor would certainly file away for future reference. "Are you trying to tell me something?" 

"Yeah, that I like you clean shaven. But beyond that, I know how antsy and weird you get when you haven't showered." 

He got up from the bed and lifted an eyebrow at Dom, who stood up after him and still didn't take his eyes off the sunrise as he stretched his arms high over his head. The man had an uncommonly long torso, to the point that even properly fitted shirts rode up suggestively. This one was small as it was, and the Doctor paused in pulling on his braces to eye the gentle curve of abdomen that was so blatantly being shown off. His lips pulled into an 'o' that wanted badly to say something, something suitably snarky, but he refrained and shook his head. 

"I'll keep watching – I mean, keep watch." He picked the Chanel jacket up off the floor and tossed it onto the bed. 

"You'll _keep watch?_ " Dom pulled a face and stretched one arm in the opposite elbow, then mirrored the move. He had finally torn his eyes away from the sunrise. 

"Yes," they blinked at each other. The Doctor had considered for a brilliant moment of relief that the gravity of Dom's situation had finally sunk in, but that had obviously been wishful thinking, "um. People want to kill you. And don't think I didn't notice that eye roll just now." 

Dom nodded, nonetheless, and moved for the door that looked most obviously like the one leading to a washroom. 

"Closet," the Doctor informed him without even looking back, then added, "don't get distracted." 

"Oh, shut up," Dom muttered under his breath, clearly over any potential awkwardness left from their tender moment. He followed the Doctor's blindly pointing finger, which kept pointing until the door to the washroom clicked behind him. 

As soon as he heard the sound, the Doctor fell back onto the mattress, lacing his fingers on his chest. He was scowling, and was still doing so when Desdetellaica entered without knocking. The shower had been running for a few minutes already, and the Doctor could only assume she had been waiting to hear it, had been waiting to get him alone. The Chanel jacket landed on his face as a morning 'hello'. The thing smelled of No. 5 perfume and Dominic Howard at once. Not entirely unpleasant. The little Cydonian woman, however, her eyebrows sharp and bowed with accusation, seemed anything but pleasant. 

"Your fiancé?" She quipped, obviously new to the word and pronouncing it with an odd accent on the final syllable. Her shoulder lifted to add a fanciful bent to the harsh tone. 

"I really shouldn't tell _you_ a thing, you're just as likely as anyone to be out to get us." 

Desi smirked and sashayed about the room, though the sway of her hips was a completely unintentional byproduct of her Reciprocal Form. If the Doctor had looked like a Nimon, she would have made herself look like a Nimon. If a Foamasi (ugh), she would be a Foamasi. How she had happened upon the form of a 1960's Fellini starlet had been pure happenstance, but the Doctor would never have complained. 

"You could come back to us. To me. Fight again." 

The Doctor sat up and leaned back on his elbows. His eyelids drooped in remembrance as she took a seat on the bed's edge, not far off. "The war is long over, Desdetellaica. I don't like fighting." 

"You were fantastic fighter. Saved many lives of my army. How can you say such thing? I can tell. You belong here." 

Her fingers moved over his hairline, over the shell of his ear and down his neck. The line of conversation, however, made her touch feel so foreign, though, so empty compared to Dom's silent grasp only several minutes ago. 

He looked darkly at Desi and wanted to make it clear, but couldn't think of how to make it clear, that he didn't want to remember. Turmoil and the threat of war had been bearing down on the Cydonians when he had unfortunately made his first appearance, and though he stayed for only less than a year, what he accomplished and helped to protect in that span had refused to fade even a bit in his memory. Civilizations in peril were irresistible because of the glory promised to whomever saved them. Then there were the memories of the war itself. Desdetellaica could not be faulted; she had been a shrewd, determined General, and obviously still was. 

"I like _surviving_. There's a difference. I had to help, and fighting was the only way." 

As gently as she had started to touch him, she pinched his neck with sudden hostility and hissed. He barely reacted, except to rub the spot. "So you bring ugly Dolexari Princess here why? For making me jealous?" 

"Are you?" He smirked. 

She didn't. "I am not." 

Attempting to bring some levity to the room, he laughed at this, but Desi was keen on steering the conversation back into that morass of unpleasantness. "There will be other fights. Peace is temporary. The Reptiles will return." 

"No, they won’t," the Doctor said softly, importantly. As well as he knew Desdetellaica, High General and decorated war hero, he knew that the revelation would not be what she wanted to hear. Care-taking, inn-keeping, and cooking were not her callings in life. She would manage, and she would be happy, but like many people he had known and cared for and gotten too close to and told way too many secrets, she would live with a feeling of unfulfillment forever. He hated to blurt out that the greatest time of her life, her time on the field of battle, was behind her. 

It took some time to sink in. "Take me with you," she nearly choked on the words, but it was mostly for the effort of swallowing her pride. The emotion most patent was desperation, selfishness. The Doctor could identify all too well. 

"I would. But I can't." 

Desi nodded, hair falling across one side of her face as she leaned forward. "The ugly Princess." 

"Oi, who are you calling ugly?" Dom was shaking a towel on his head, dressed only from the waist down and not even very much at that. The look he gave Desi could cut glass. 

She regarded him, pulled back slightly, and then looked at the Doctor. Those Anita Ekberg eyebrows couldn't possibly ride higher on her forehead. "Human male. I could not have known." 

"What is she on about?" 

The Doctor looked at Dom, who was as defensively displeased as he was wet as he was deliciously attractive with his jeans flagrantly unbuttoned and his face freshly shaven. Then he looked back at Desi. Dom. Desi. Dom. 

Funny, he'd been certain that Dom would be the one to punch him first. Desi didn't waste her time with the clichéd slap; she put her knuckles to his cheek without hesitation. 

"Ow! Fuck! What?" 

"Any other surprise? More joke to put over on Desdetellaica? No! I think you leave now, and take your…" she looked at Dom with palpable enmity, not entirely unlike a wildcat, "…Princess. While you can." 

Stunned, Dom held his towel around his shoulders as the Cydonian General left hips-first, slamming the door of the room behind herself. "Leave now!" She called again. 

"You okay, mate? Say the wrong thing? Again?" Dom laughed at him once he got over the initial shock, but the Doctor was rising to his feet slowly and with a look of great significance spreading over his features. He nodded without really hearing Dom's words, and moved up to him. 

His eyes were wild with a fear that he didn't have time to explain. Pulling Dom forward by the waist of his jeans as he buttoned and zipped them for him (which produced a hooded-eye smirk and a little purring sound, though the time couldn't have been less right), he used the proximity to communicate as plainly as he could: "No, I think she's absolutely serious about what she just said. More than you know. We need to _leave._ "


	5. Chapter 5

He couldn't be arsed to check whether Dom was keeping up. There had barely been time for the erstwhile and future Princess to pull on a shirt and grab his jacket before the Doctor was suggesting that they leave through the window. This had, of course, been met with incredulity, but the suggestion had been more of a warning to let Dom consider his inevitable plan of action. 

"When did you get so agile all of a sudden?" Dom called out of the second story and down to the dusty red street as the Doctor jumped to the ground. He had succeeded in navigating a series of sills and cosmetic eaves, holding on to whatever he could, while the whole display seemed ludicrous and impossible to his audience of one. Apprehension clenched Dom's lips together in a thin, slightly crooked line as he stared at the seven metre drop. 

"I've always been agile! I'm an agile little fucker! What you're wondering is when I acquired a sense of balance. I'll pin that one on adrenaline. Now, down you go!" He looked up at Dom and waved him on with his arms stretched up, poking the tip of his tongue out of the side, eyebrows bowed desperately.

He was skeptical, the Doctor could see that much. Perhaps he should have shoved Dom out of the window first and dealt with the fallout later. 

"What'll happen if I just run as fast as I can through the way we came in?" 

Easy question. "Giant, insect-like aliens." 

If it were a television program, Dom would have paused a beat for comic effect before swinging his legs over the windowsill and taking his chances. But it was not a television program, and Dom glanced back over his shoulder contemplatively.

_Oh god no, he's considering it._

"Dom. _Dom!_ I'll _catch_ you, how's that? Just don’t—" 

Too late. Dom disappeared from the window above and after a split-second of reflecting on how colossally _stupid_ that man could be sometimes, the Doctor took off for the front door, hoping to head him off before anything went too terrifically wrong. He nearly lost his footing as he rounded the corner of the building, distracted though he was by pawing at the pocket inside of his jacket for the closest thing he had to a weapon. In fact, he was still fumbling around, only remembering that it was the left pocket instead of the right when he reached the door and it flew open. Dom was barreling out first, thank goodness, and half-collided with the Doctor. 

"For fuck's fucking sake, you _idiot_ , are you okay?" He tried to be very concerned at the same time that he was clumsily helping Dom find his legs after the crash of bodies. Of course it all came out sounding much angrier than it actually was. Though both of them had always considered "idiot" a mutual term of endearment. 

"Are there bloody bees in there, too? Something stung me! I got stung!" He was limping only slightly, but his plaintive, whiny tone let the Doctor know that it was mostly a show. He rolled his eyes and shoved at Dom. 

"Because you're an idiot – run!" 

Through the oversized door, a ten-foot-tall Cydonian skittered out to tower over him. The Doctor bent back as far as he could, staring into the maw of many mouths as it clicked a few choice threats at him, leaning down closer and closer.

"Dominic, are you running?" He glanced for a split-second over his shoulder to confirm that yes, he was. The git probably had no idea how to even get back to the TARDIS, but at least he was trying. "Ah, good. Now then. Desdetellaica, it's been a pleasure, and though I am very, _very_ displeased with the way you've decided to handle this situation, I'm characteristically determined to be the better man and say what I never did last time…" 

She lashed out at him with one massive, barbed appendage which he ducked just in time, falling back on his heels before rolling away to the side, crouching at the ready. Something in his smirk at that moment bordered on admiration. 

"…goodbye!" 

As he launched into a run, after a quick correction to put him in Dom's direction, he called over his shoulder: "I even wrote a song for you! Talk about ungrateful!" 

He was laughing, though, by the time he caught up to Dom, grabbed him by the back of the shirt, and pulled him in the opposite direction. There was no way to know how much of a lead they had – neither looked back, which was imperative considering the debris-strewn pathway back to the top of the bluff which had them constantly jumping or side-stepping obstacles. The TARDIS was only like a bungee cord to stop his forward momentum as the Doctor caught it by the front edge and nearly fell down in the course of opening it and throwing Dom inside. 

When he followed, whooping ecstatically, Dom was collapsed on his back, heaving breath, body splayed out quite temptingly. Hands on his hips, the Doctor walked back and forth in front of the door, rolling his shoulders. Happy to be back at it. The running, specifically. "Don’t worry, no one will get in. None of the Cydonians were ever really able to see the TARDIS. Strange, I always thought. Small miracle, now, though. Are you all right?" 

"I lost the Chanel." Dom sounded inordinately distressed, especially thanks to his pained breathing pattern. 

"That's okay, that doesn't matter. Are you okay?" He walked over and crouched close to him, performing a quick appraisal with his eyes. 

"I don't know. Something felt like it stung me when I ran through that lower floor. I didn't feel anything hit me, though. I _was_ pretty quick." He grinned, breathless, at the Doctor, who returned the expression with a shake of his head. 

"Where?" 

The grin faded, and Dom glanced away. The Doctor was wondering how many more times he would be able to roll his eyes on this trip before they'd need an alignment. " _Where_ , Dom?"

Looking not unlike a petulant child (which he, of course, was), Dom pointed to the top of his upper thigh. It took considerable effort for the Doctor to keep his eyebrows in check. He cleared his throat and did his best to maintain a healthy level of decorum. "Right, then. Take 'em off." 

Maybe that hadn't been the best way to maintain any decorum whatsoever. Dom resisted with his eyes, but relented when the Doctor's hands went for the top button himself. "Okay, okay, fine, don't…I guess I'm just worried what you'll find," a moment, and an exchange of looks, "oh, not like _that_ , Christ…" 

He sloughed the dark washed jeans down to his knees while making every effort not to look directly at the Doctor, huffing and sighing as if the entire situation were an affront to his decency. "Dom, I can't help but notice that you're acting like I've never seen you like this before." The silk checkerboard-print boxers, however, were entirely new. He repressed a snicker at those.

"I just don't like being examined,' he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest though he was still lying down. The effect was enough to make the Doctor giggle.

"Well, I will say that I wish this could have waited until we went to Australia, you need some sun on these legs." 

"Pot. Kettle." 

"Ghostly pale suits me, though." He seemed unduly proud of this, and extracted from his jacket pocket the thing he'd been trying to get a hold of at Desi's Inn. 

"Hold on now," Dom uncrossed his arms and held them up, his voice urgent, "where do you think you're going to be putting _that_?" 

Having never heard that one in regards to his favorite accessory, which was quite a feat given the centuries he'd owned it, the Doctor regarded Dom with a thoughtful visual scan, this time not bothering to keep his eyebrows in check. "Now that you mention it, I'm getting ideas…" 

"What _is_ it, even?" 

"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor flicked at the top of it and twirled it in his palm before pressing the button that released the mechanism inside, "fixes what’s broken. Ascertains what's not quite right. Sometimes…it even works!"

Dom watched all of this in amazement, but it wasn't the sort of childlike amazement that someone unfamiliar with his most recent Earthly form might have had. "Oh yeah, not sexual at all, that. 'Sonic Screwdriver'? It even sounds like some sort of fancy vibra—"

"Be quiet, please," the Doctor mumbled, leaning over Dom and pointing the bright red light of the thingamajig at the slightly darker spot on his thigh. It looked not unlike a nasty mosquito bite. The sonic screwdriver couldn't seem to tell the difference, either. "Well, the way it seems for now, it may just _have_ been that something stung you." 

"Great, Martian insects, I'm sure those are—" he suddenly cried out in pain, grabbing his neck.

The Doctor was quick to react, leaping on top of him and bending forward to inspect his tattoo. Dom was thankfully too concerned with his pain at present to make a fuss over the fact that he was being, well…straddled. After some prying, the Doctor managed to peel Dom's fingers away from his tattoo, which was suddenly glowing bright and actually emitting heat. Feeling that from the inside couldn't possibly be pleasant. "I stand corrected," the Doctor murmured, and the sonic screwdriver buzzed for a few seconds as he gleaned what he could from the new development. A few more adjustments to the gadget, a bit longer under the shiny red light, and the glow from the tattoo began to recede. "There. Better, a little?" 

Dom seemed light-headed, and closed his eyes as he groaned. "What just happened?" 

"You just got bugged. And I know that's the oldest cliché in the book, but quite literally you got bugged by a bug. Desdetellaica called the 'law' on us, more or less, and put a device on you amplifying your position to pretty much every soldier of fortune in the cosmos. Clever thing must have gotten it ready as a contingency, she probably slipped it in your things while we were in that room all together – _ah!_ – I would love her if I didn't want to kill her right now! We're a little bit fucked because of this, but it's nothing I can't handle. Think…think…think…" 

He thought for a good minute or two, biting the tip of his tongue and then his thumbnail as he did, sitting forward, sitting back, muttering aborted plans of action before waving them away and sighing.

Though he still seemed out of sorts, Dom spoke. "You can…um…get off of me now."

"Sorry," the Doctor removed himself, smiling, "didn't mean to get you too excited, there." 

" _You did not—_ " 

"Oh, I did." He interrupted devilishly. Dom may have actually blushed as they glared at one another, and the Doctor had the decency to look away (laughing, though, of course), when Dom reached down to jerk his pants back up into place.

"Now then!" The Doctor leapt up and ran to the central core, snapped his fingers, and then went on a dash around the flight deck, sprinting here and there, obviously searching for something. "As soon as I get this lovely beast up and running proper, we'll need a destination. Somewhere they might not look for a Dolexari Princess, somewhere they'd be hard-pressed to blend in even if they came looking. Back to Earth, then? Where do you want to go? Want to see The Clash at Bond's? Bowie in his Ziggy days? I know – Queen at Wembley, we'll go see Queen at Wembley, just for you, duck."

"I'm sorry, what? I sort of zoned out there." The Doctor turned in time to see that Dom was holding his head, leaning forward over his knees, looking two shades paler and in need of sorting out. 

"I was saying…oh, no," if Dom hadn't heard _that_ and been excited by it, something was very, very wrong, "everything all right, mate? Need anything? Something to drink?" He hoped against hope that it was only this.

"Still hurts. I feel sort of…like sleeping…" Dom propped himself up in an effort to get back to his feet, but couldn't seem to make it all the way. The Doctor was there to catch him before he stumbled and crashed back down. Holding him carefully, he tried to ascertain the situation with a long sigh. Dom's head flopped against his shoulder and he breathed a little huskily on his neck. He was burning up.

"Blimey, you got a fever now," he held his palm against Dom's forehead, damning the turn of events, "this is…not good. Not good at all." 

"What's going on?" 

"I don't even know! But I can't take you out like this, you'll never be able to keep up. Can you wait here? I need to get us going…somewhere…anywhere…for a while." 

Dom nodded and sank back against the risers, resting his head in his hands on the top level. "You're a shitty Doctor if you can't even diagnose me." 

"I'm not that sort of Doctor! I'm very concerned!" And he was. Concerned, and a little bit scared. The Doctor turned on heel back and forth, looking around, making a thoughtful and distressed "ahhh…" sound as he shook his fingers through his hair. Finally he pointed at a nook on the middle level and dashed for it. On his way, he called for Dom. "Don't fall asleep on me yet! Pick a number!" 

"A number?" 

"Yeah, any number between 1 and…let's say 65." 

"34." 

"20! Great number. I like that." A bit of banging around and searching through miscellany on the second level, and the Doctor finally produced what he had been looking for. "I really need to be more careful with where I throw things, especially these things, when I'm in a hurry." 

Dom was obviously feeling a wave of clearer consciousness as he watched the Doctor return to his level of the flight deck with an unfamiliar guitar strapped around his neck. "That's…" 

The Doctor leveled a questioning glare at him, his fingers tuning the glamorous red guitar lovingly. In fact, the way he stroked the thing would have alarmed Dom more if he hadn't been half-gone. The more clear elements of interest in his mind were the aesthetic ones. It was sparkly, it was unfamiliar, and the Midi screen looked just a touch unlike any Dom had ever seen before. "Yes?" 

"I've never seen that guitar." 

"You wouldn't. This is part of the TARDIS." When he said it, petting the Midi screen pointedly as he did, Dom was receptive enough to hear the lush and lurid tone of his voice, to notice the transcendent smile on his face.

"But it's a Manson, right?" That much was obvious. 

"Well, yeah, but I gave him a very specific screen to use for this Kaoss pad," he pointed at it. It looked like every other one, except that Midi controller. Something seemed strange about it, more organic at first glance. Other than that little subliminal detail, however, it looked like the one on the Kaoss guitar Matt had started using a few months ago, "told him it was a special sort of XY I picked up in Japan. Actually had the nerve to call it a SIDRAT controller, because I thought that was very clever," pause, "which it was. I'm always clever." 

He had dragged a metal footlocker over in front of the central core, which elevated his height to the point that he could do whatever it was he needed to do. Several wires branched out from what appeared to be a simple amp plug, strung up and hanging about it like tentacles. A thick blue wire was plugged up high and a twisted yellow one hung loose where it attached to the waist-high keyboard panel the Doctor had been using earlier in their trip. He stepped over a few wires and threw a couple of them over his shoulder, arranging everything with a look a great concentration until he appeared to be some sort of tiny, glittery cyborg, or worse, a victim from some bizarre Japanese porn cartoon. 

The Doctor turned a few knobs and pushed a few buttons, always fingering the strings of the guitar as he did. Dominic watched in awe as the hum of feedback began to drift through the chamber, and an alternating array of color pulsed on not only the Kaoss pad, but within the central core as well. Like they were communicating directly. 

"It's like a….steering wheel?"

"No." The Doctor looked very concerned, and dragged his finger over the pad as a test, repeating the motion as the colors refused to sync up each time, the core sputtering every time it came close. "Shit. It's a navigation panel. Without this I can only go back and forth between places and times I've already been…and if anyone's on our tail, they should be smart enough to know that already. Problem is…it's not quite working." 

"Why a guitar?" 

The Doctor only humored him because he still appeared remarkably ill. Did Dom really expect some deep, enlightening answer to that question? "Because it looks cool. And it's good camouflage." 

"But I've never seen you play it!" 

"Well," he was still turning and prodding, rubbing and poking, sighing and growling at the mechanisms that didn't want to communicate. A few plucks at a few strings and his face was still one of concern, of uncertainty. The pleasant sound of melodic feedback and distortion filled the flight deck of the TARDIS, "that's because it needed to be hidden as well. Soon as your neck lit up like a Christmas tree, I collected this beauty from storage. Then it was time to load you in and take off before I really even had time to test it out. Hence…delays." 

Dom tried to stand up again, grabbing the railing desperately, but couldn't pull himself up. He did have the strength to hold up a hand at what the Doctor had said, though. "Wait. My neck. Guitar. Me. The chronology, here. I don't like it." 

The Doctor looked back at him, this time his eyes wide with innocence as the pink bud of his tongue poked out. He was stuck in that moment, in deep concentration but obviously uncomfortable with this particular confrontation. 

"Matt." 

"Doctor." 

" _Matt_ …tell me you took care of me before you went and got that guitar." 

The Doctor glanced down at the guitar for a moment before looking back at Dom. He was such a horrid liar. "Of course I did." 

"In what way?" 

A pause in his musical ministrations allowed him to sigh and turn toward Dom, looking a bit sheepish and awkward just standing there on the footlocker with wires extruding from a painfully garish guitar. "Um." 

"Allow me to fill in the blanks, right? You drugged me off and then carted me back to Teignmouth—" 

"Ey, not true! You were perfectly lucid for that trip," a pause, and he mumbled, "couldn't have gotten you through the airport, otherwise." 

"Mmm-hmmm." 

"I drugged you and shoved you in the TARDIS and then went to get the guitar. Okay? All right? Can I get us flying, now?" 

"You left me alone in here!" 

"I locked the door!" As if this were any consolation. 

"What if I'd woken up?" 

"Heh, not likely. Took you over a day as it was." The Doctor eyed him darkly with a smirk as he went back to strumming the guitar and fingering the Kaoss pad, his efforts more diligent than before.

"Listen, that's not the point! You—" Dom wavered on a groan of sickness as he felt his ire increase. Luckily, he was cut off.

"Ah, there we go!" The Doctor cried jovially as the noise in the room went from fuzzy and warm to high, shrill, and almost sublime in its perfect whine. The core glowed red and began to pulse as if it were alive, and the Doctor looked down to watch his fingers on the pad as it mirrored the color and the motion perfectly. At last. He laughed loudly. 

"Oh, you gorgeous, gorgeous thing, I love you!" 

The TARDIS began to shake a bit before Dom was full of the weightless sensation of flight, which only lasted a moment before the Doctor flipped a stabilizer switch on the keyboard panel. The Doctor watched him, grinning, from atop his perch, and then triumphantly tore into a searing riff that Dom did not recognize. The sound was reminiscent of something Matt had been fooling with in the last few months, a more violent riff than he'd felt comfortable to include on the most recent album. Dom seemed impressed even through his glossy, nauseous expression. 

"Okay, admittedly, that was just for fun." He divested himself of the red TARDIS Manson, grinning. A bit of extra music was made as he keyed in a few things, humming, and then hopped down from the footlocker. The guitar fit neatly into a pre-fab notch above the keyboard panel, the Kaoss pad still talking very obviously and hypnotically with the core of the TARDIS. In parting, the Doctor ran his fingers over the glittery curve of the body as sensually as Dom had ever seen him touch something, inanimate or not. 

"Should I give you two a—" he made a small sound of discomfort, and had to tear his eyes away from the oscillating colors to lean back completely between levels, "—private moment?"

"Sorry," the Doctor smiled boyishly and hurried over to Dom, "I've known this ship longer than anything, than anyone. She's very special to me. Despite all the kicking and roughhousing I do like to treat her well." 

"Yeah, obviously." And a bit creepy, but he didn't mention that part. "Where are we going, then?" 

The Doctor sighed and thought of the way to best explain it as he stood over the groggy Dominic. "A random course, algorithm based on the number 20." 

"Why not—" 

"I've already used 34. We're just going to bounce around space and time for a while until I'm armed with a plan. Now then," he held his hand out like a proper gentleman in an effort to make up for earlier carelessness with Dom's well-being, "let's get you sorted out."

He hoisted Dom up until they were standing, and was relieved at least to find that the patient could walk. His balance was dodgy, but he could walk. "I'll get you laid up, make you some tea, and—" 

"Are you being serious right now, because you sound like someone's mum the way you seem so…excited…by the prospect." 

"Well, the upside is that whatever's happening to you is sapping your energy. You might actually be quiet for a few hours while I can have time to think! What do you think – what would you like to eat? I'll make you up something." He walked him through a door Dom hadn't been through yet, a long metal hallway with doors lining up and down the corridor. 

"Someone's mum or someone's _wife_. How does that even work, really?" Dom clutched his stomach, realizing that yes, now that the Doctor mentioned it, he was absolutely starving. "With the Dolexari I mean. You're betrothed to me, and I'm a Princess, but you said it's a matriarchy, so…" 

The Doctor paused, and stopped Dom in front of the third door on their right. He held him at elbow's-length, his face gleeful.

"Oh, _what?_ " Dom rolled his bleary eyes. 

"You just said it," this visibly thrilled him, "said you're a Princess." 

"Yeah, and you're a Time Lord. Princess beats Lord like scissors beat paper. Would I be your wife or the other way around?" 

Inside, the room opened up into a rather lavishly appointed bed chamber complete with some décor inspired by various royal eccentrics throughout human history. Egyptian influence in the wall hangings clashed terribly with the Queen Anne couch and the Versailles-style recessed bed, but Dom felt too tired to really think about it. "I'd be subservient to you, if that's what you're asking. Always with the power games. Not that you're thinking of going through with it, are you?" The Doctor deposited him on the sumptuously dressed bed and left him to his own devices. He paused before turning away completely, though. "Need help getting your kit off?" 

"Oh, that would delight you, wouldn't it? No, thank you, Doctor, I'm sure I can manage." The hint of flirtation in his voice was broken only by the wobble of sickness. "But I would like to request some pancakes." 

"Pancakes? I'm shite with pancakes." 

"Learn quickly, Lord Clever," Dom rolled over onto his stomach, legs taking up approximately 80% of the bedspace from the Doctor's glorious perspective, "pumpkin pancakes." 

"That's bloody random. And stop putting syllables where they don't go." 

"Pump-uh-kin, pump-uh-kin, pump-uh-kin! That's how it's said, fuck off. Pumpkin pancakes, and the consequences may be dire if you don't deliver!" He sounded almost _drunk_ at this point, and the Doctor leaned against the doorjamb just to hear where the rambling was leading him. 

"Oh. Might they be? Explain." 

He mumbled into the pillow he was clutching, but the Doctor heard him clear as day. "I may not snog you like I was planning to if you did, indeed, deliver me a meal in bed. Nurse me. Take care of me. That was my plan. Now I've blown it, haven’t I? The surprise has to turn into a threat?" 

"I could just snog you right now."

"Could you?" A _challenge?_ "Go make some food, I haven’t eaten in a day at least." 

"Of course, your majesty," the Doctor purred mischievously, this strange energy-sapping mystery affliction proving to be more entertaining than he'd previously considered it might. 

Now how the hell did one go about making pumpkin pancakes?


	6. Chapter 6

Piano music. So familiar. He'd woken up to this on numerous past occasions, and never once was it an unwelcome thing. The way Matt wove together pieces old and new and completely improvised was stunning, musically death-defying; especially when he thought no one was listening, A bit of Rachmaninoff led into the piano section from "Layla", and then Matt was playing up and down the scales frantically, making the shift to a breezier key and a much more complicated time signature with a natural flair. The sound carried down the corridor and through the open door of the gaudy "royal" bedroom. Sleepily, Dom looked around, wishing there were only sunlight and breakfast to make the five star treatment complete. 

Sometime during his convalescent nap he had, in fact, gotten his kit off for the most part. He looked down at his bare toes sticking out from the bundle of luxury linens, wiggled them, and laughed. Childlike, careless. _Drunk_ is how he felt. Magnificently happy and uninhibited and out of sorts. Too comfortable to get out of bed or even wake up completely. Too comfortable to care that his stomach was gnawing, angry and empty, on itself. He started to turn onto his side but found his body to feel quite like a trunk rooted to the unbelievably posh mattress. 

Gorgeous fluttering of a disjointed melody drifted through the door on the air, and he let his eyes close again, smiling broadly. 

The second nap mustn't have lasted long. When he woke up again it was because of the aroma wafting in rather than the music. He wondered what Matt – the Doctor – fuck it, he'd take his chances calling him Matt today (today? Was it?) – looked like standing over a griddle with a recipe book, trying to make sense out of pancakes. And _pumpkin_ pancakes, at that! Dom threw his arms out with all the strength he could find in them (they felt quite like rubber) and took a deep, blissful breath of the unmistakable smell. He hadn't indulged in homemade pumpkin pancakes since he'd been a child, and most eateries that claimed to offer them were badly rubbish. 

Being waited on. This could be rather easy to get used to. He was able to think past the haziness and bite his lip on a smile, wondering how long he could keep up the sickness if it meant this sort of treatment. Space was well and fine, but his maiden outing had found him in just a bit over his self-admittedly pretty blond head. The TARDIS seemed cozy enough, and this Matt was turning out to be just as accessible as he'd hoped. The Doctor. He was some sort of Intergalactic Man of Mystery, was he? James Bond for the cosmos, but scads more ridiculous and brandishing phallic tricorders instead of guns? He'd be escorting Dom back to the Pleiades soon. Back home. 

Home. It wouldn't be home, though. No matter if he was a Princess or the bloody Pope, it wouldn't be home. His mental processes at that particular moment in time (and space) were too simple to consider how depressing the reality of it was, so all he focused on was the question: would he stay? Matt, the Doctor, whatever or whomever or _when_ ever he was. Would he? It could become home. Dom could make a few concessions. But if the Doctor thought he was going to leave him in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye…

He twitched his nose on a sneer and sniffed at the air again. A deep, pleasant "mmmmm" emanated when visions of food danced in his head. 

If the Doctor _did_ stay, would they be obligated to keep up…appearances? 

This was enough to make his mind wander, lost though it was in the satisfying mental snowdrift of the sickness that had downed him in the first place. Blindly groping for fully formed thoughts had its advantages, though, such as half-formed thoughts about blindly groping certain agile rock star aliens. Repeatedly. And being groped in return. 

_He's my best friend, and on top of that I know how unsexy he can be. Downright disgusting, sometimes, in fact. I must just be extra horny because of this…illness._

_Yeah. Keep telling yourself that, Howard._

He turned his head on the pillow when there came a noise in the doorway. The Doctor's face was all knots of determination and effort not to drop anything as he carried a tarnished-looking tray balanced in one hand and a teapot in the other. 

Dom giggled softly, and the Doctor nearly dropped his surfeit of what could only be assumed as breakfast when he looked over, visibly shocked. "Oh, good, you're awake!" He managed with the tray, and crouched down to deposit it on the empty side of the bed. Dom's eyes went wide as he leaned over to look, still finding it difficult to move but unable to resist seeing the fruits of the requested domestic labors. 

The tea kettle, the Doctor pushed into an almost-free spot on the bedside table, and went about pouring a cup for Dom and one for himself. He kept shooting expectant glances at Dom, humming while he did, obviously proud of his handiwork. 

Pancakes, a little misshapen, but that only added to the homemade charm. A glass syrup dispenser sat next to the stack, and there was even a small batch of fried eggs. 

Dom's expression went from "happy drunken grin" to "wide-eyed drunken full-on reaction" when he noticed this. "You made me eggs?" A bright, sunny laugh tumbled out. 

"You need protein." 

"I can't eat this much." Despite how much he was starving, there were about eight pancakes stacked there, give or take ones he might not be able to see. Amazed, though, that the effort had been made, he eyed the Doctor dreamily. However, he seemed hell-bent on refusing to flirt back directly. Dom pouted. 

The Doctor sighed, obviously attempting to distract himself, and in the process ignoring Dom's deliberate bedroom eyes. Drinking from his cup of tea, free hand in his pocket as he paced alongside the bed, he seemed fidgety, nervous, almost worried. "Yes, and you will. You've been bitten by a Vitia Parasite. I did a little research. It will limit your motor functions _and_ your common sense if certain levels in your blood aren't kept in balance. You'll feel drunk once the effects set in fully, after the initial wave of malaise." 

"They done that already. I feel…fantastic. Tired. You made me eggs!" 

Another sigh. "Eat it _all_. The more protein and carbohydrates you ingest, the harder it is for the poison to effect you. All that and you should be set to be up and about for a few hours at least. Can you sit up?" He put the teacup aside and walked around the foot of the bed, standing in front of Dominic, who wanted to lift a foot to rub up his leg but found himself remarkably unable to. Not that he was paralyzed, but his body felt ten times heavier, his movements even slower. His face lit with sudden concern over this, he tried to sit up and realized that, as was becoming so often the case, the Doctor was right. "I…don't think so." 

"Come on, then."

The Doctor knelt on the bed and grabbed Dom's arms, pulling him up until he was sitting. The sheet fell down and Dom watched for any reaction as his state of undress was revealed. But, again, the Doctor was intent on little more than sideways glances. It didn't bother Dom as much as he'd expected, and they laughed together at the absurdity of the situation as they shifted around until the tray of food was finally between them, both men sitting cross-legged on the bed. The Doctor was completely prepared to actually feed him. 

It took a few fits of giggles before Dom finally calmed down enough to open his mouth for the Doctor, but once they had the rhythm of things down it was exceedingly difficult to stop. Again, Dom found himself considering how easy it would be to get used to a life like this. Being waited on hand and foot. Especially hand. Specifically these hands. The Doctor held his palm beneath Dom's chin, catching the syrup as it dripped off before licking his fingers happily to help. They exchanged smiles and chuckles throughout the first few minutes, as Dom sandwiched his complaints about how the eggs weren't runny enough and the pancakes weren't fluffy enough between remarks like: "I didn't know you could cook like this!" and "these are actual, real pumpkin pancakes, you've just made my year." 

Considering that the wardrobe was the size of a charity shop on its own, he could only imagine what sort of wonders could be found in the pantry. He began to think of increasingly bizarre meals he could request in the future (present? Past?), lips twitching mischievously between proferred forkfuls.

"Do you cook often?" He asked the Doctor, as easily as if he were dropping a pick up line.

"Didn't used to. Don't really have to, that much. It's more of a vice than a necessity." 

"Like wine?" Dom wiggled his eyebrows for a moment, fielding at last a comfortable laugh from the Doctor, who had begun to watch him during the meal. 

"Oh, you definitely need to see the TARDIS' wine cellar." 

"How can you—"

"Don't even try to wrap your head around it yet. Ask how I acquired fresh pumpkin next." Their voices were low, their eyes smiling, and the Doctor had, possibly without noticing, reverted back to flirting. 

Maybe it happened that in the prevailing silence their minds mutually wandered back to the encounter in Cydonia, or maybe it was just the natural course of things for the laughter and fun to be overtaken by the inherent intimacy of the tableau. One of them would have to break the tension, but they both seemed content to stay silent and go about it. The Doctor's fingers lifted higher until they were softly touching his chin, and their eyes were each stunned into position by the others'. 

_What in Hell is this? Being fed is what a nurse does to you when you're in a rest home in your eighties, not something a sexy Doctor sits across from you on your bed and turns into culinary foreplay! Shit, he obviously doesn't know how horny this whole parasite-sickness-bug thing made me. Or does he? Shit. He does, I can see it in those eyes._

At last, Dom gulped and said lowly: "I can take it from here." 

"You've got a little…" the Doctor tapped at a few flecks of errant syrup on Dom's chin. Dom scrunched his face up and laughed, leaning forward expectantly, in complete control of his muscles now.

_All of them._

"Um…napkin's right here." The Doctor tapped at the side of the tray and glanced down, away. 

"Oh, what are you waiting for?" Dom rightly growled. 

"Finish eating." He slid off the bed and flashed another one of his warning looks. Dom scoffed at it, this time, but couldn't seem to stop stuffing his face, either way. 

"Finish eating, and…then what, exactly, pumpkin?" 

He paused, the little line between his eyebrows showing for a split-second as he reacted to this. "—excuse me?" 

"I'll have to remember that one! Your face…" he was almost finished with his eggs, but the pancakes might have been too much for even his carb-hungry stomach, "again, this is really good. Or it might just be because I was on the famished side. Good job, mate, you're not a half bad cook." 

"Thank you…" the Doctor ran a hand through his hair and lingered at the foot of the bed. He couldn't resist explaining himself. Babbling, that is. "I just want to make sure you're in your right mind, is all. I don't want to—I don't want us to—I mean, when you're not in total control of what you're thinking, it can be very confusing. For you. And really, really for me." 

"Like that time in Paris, then?" 

He nodded importantly, a slow dawning of memory taking over. Yeah, sort of like that. This was the first time Dom had ever mentioned their rather showy make-out session under the influence of way too many drinks and two very, very hot female instigators. Neither remembered much about it – just that it had _happened_ , and had likely happened on other occasions too fargone to even remember _vaguely_. But that had been at least four years ago. 

"We've been flirting a lot." The Doctor said as if it were news, tapping his lip. 

"Since we met, yeah." Dom set the tray aside after finishing his tea. The Doctor was quick to it, placing it on the floor.

As if he were planning for something to upset it, otherwise. 

"I mean now." 

"Matthew…" he slipped into the name he knew best, and was not corrected, "do we really need to do that 'airing out our particular desires and intentions' thing? It's embarrassing, and boring. And besides, aren't some things best left…I don't know…undisclosed, until you just stumble upon them?" 

"I just want to make certain that you're certain." He was already on the bed again, though, on his knees, crawling forward. 

"I just ate four eggs and about six pancakes, and I think it's safe to say that I still want very much for you to sn—" 

The Doctor was already on him, holding his face at first to slowly and sensually lick away the flecks of syrup from his chin. His hands were expectedly strong, like they could kill him as easily as they could play in his hair watching a Martian sunrise. Dom's words stopped and a hitched "oh…" came out in their place before the Doctor moved in for a real kiss. As their weight shifted together and the too-soft mattress reacted, they nearly pitched backward, but Dom's arms shot out to hold them up. That he'd even been coherent enough to do that was shocking, and now it had nothing to do with any alien parasite. 

"Say my name again." The words, breathy and demanding and smoothed by what Dom only now realized was generations of experience, made him heat up suddenly, made his fingers curl in the sheets. He gasped a breath and pushed up into the hot mouth hovering over his own, wondering if it would have taken a spaceship and a cross-galactic getaway to bring this out of Matt under other circumstances. 

_What other circumstances? This isn't even Matt, this is the—_

"Doctor…" 

"Not that name." This time the heat rose where teeth were nipping at his skin, all around his neck and jawline, where the hard, hot tip of a tongue mapped the rise of his collarbone. 

_Maybe it **is—**_

"Matthew." The name sounded like some beautifully filthy thing when he said it, the word grinding out through his teeth as Dom grabbed him and held on, Matt holding him up. He kissed him more deeply and feverishly than he'd thought he might, though the whole scenario smacked of a sweet intimacy despite it. 

They were not a couple of teenagers fumbling around all coy and experimental, intent on using the encounter to determine and draw their lines, stopping whenever it felt awkward and never speaking of it again. No, they were quite grown and quite aware, with established boundaries, with knowledge of exactly what tended to transpire between them when pretense was thrown away. They knew exactly where this was going, where they had never dared before, thanks to whatever had always been there to stop them. 

_This is mine._

"So you always thought I had a thing for you, eh?"

Matt seemed rather annoyed for a flash that Dom had interrupted, but when he pulled his lips away he seemed to come back to the moment, to appreciate the banter for what doors it might set about opening. 

He was straddling one of Dom's knees, and couldn't possible be ignorant of the fact that his Princess was half-hard. 

"Obviously I was right." 

"Maybe I always thought the same." 

"So do you ever wonder why we didn't ever do anything about it?" Matt reached down and ran his palm over the thigh between his knees, applying enough pressure that Dom felt it underneath the blankets. He hissed sharply when Matt pushed on the spot where he sported a fresh, tender bug bite. Actually, he hissed through his nose, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes, all rather euphorically. When he gathered himself and looked at Matt again, he was being watched in subtle amazement. 

_Shit, he should know by now that I have a certain thing for the right kind of pain…_

"Because we're _straight_ is why we never—" 

He was cut off when Matt snorted and regarded this with a high-pitched giggle. "Call it what you want, Princess. Use your petty Earth labels. You know, the Dolexari value intimacy and kindred spirit high above reproductive capability, and that's how they pair up for life? Mating is something that happens as a matter of course, it's as impersonal and boring as buying a new car or shopping for insurance."

"I'm Dolexari." Dom said deeply as Matt's fingers curved around his thigh, pulling the blankets in tighter, so close to touching him right…there…

_He is deliberately driving me crazy. Should I take this to mean that obviously I was right, too?_

"Yes, and I've always had to play it so, so, so straight because of that. Kept you in check's what I did," 

"In check?" Dom leaned up and tossed his arms about Matt's shoulders, curious but at the same time determined not to be interrupted by too much chatter. Their faces came close, but not close enough. Just like Matt's fingers, just the right amount of distance to be maddening. 

"Earth doesn't like ambiguity. Not yet, not when…we're…from. It's easy to tell something's alien about the both of us. But you and your ingrained careless rejection of social paradigms made it hard for me to keep it all bottled up." 

Their lips almost brushed again, their eyes fluttering between open and closed, and yet Dom was saying: "I felt well-adjusted enough. I date – sleep with – _women._ Always have." 

"You think society in general wasn't always telling you to do just that? And me," looking down, he tightened his hand, watching with an almost clinical fascination as Dom's other leg spread out in involuntary invitation, "hmm. I was a dick. I alternated all the time between acting the way I wanted to when I was with you, and reminding you of how you were supposed to be." 

"I'll admit you are a confusing arse." Dom mumbled into his hair.

Matt seemed pleased by this when he glanced up, and finally gave in to the kiss they'd been playing about. The ferocity had faded to a less marked hunger, but the overwhelming battle for Alpha was still in the way Matt enjoyed his first real opportunity to take a long, hard suck on Dom's lower lip, as Dom grabbed dark hair between his knuckles and pulled, pushing himself up against Matt's knee. 

_Well, I'm glad he apologized for it all, at least._

"I'm using up all your energy now. This is completely stupid of me," he growled, nails raking over Dom's back lightly. They conversed between half-kisses, long having known each others' scents but now taking the time to linger, to combine the sensory perceptions. To taste one another, connect that to touch, close their eyes and feel in every way possible. 

"I do feel a little weaker than before, but that's okay. It's understandable." Dom put a strong note on the end of this comment by pushing his hips to bump Matt's knee again, rather too overt to be just a hint. "Don't stop." 

"Fuck, I just..." Matt's face twisted in conflict, his left eye twitching shut as he tried to think over the onslaught of physical stimulation, "I want to. I want to touch you, right now, want to…" but he stopped. His hands kneaded up and over Dom's shoulders until they clutched the sides of his face, sucking hungrily on his mouth for several seconds before pulling away abruptly. Dom's lips still felt the ghostly tingle of the solid kiss as Matt growled loudly, leaning back, rubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes. He leaned back until he was half bent over his feet, chanting: "No, no, no, no, _no!_ "

And with that, he snapped back up, pointing in Dom's face. "This is your fault."

"My fault?" Dom's register leapt to a fair squeak as he reacted to the accusation. 

"Yeah! Talking about snogging and giving me all those _looks_." Matt – the Doctor again, and was the transition ever obvious – dismounted Dom and then the bed. It may as well have been on fire.

"When I woke up I was _unnaturally_ horny, didn't you know about that particular side-effect? Shoddy research, I'd say!" 

"I thought that was a very natural reaction to me cooking you breakfast in bed." 

_Maybe._

"Don't flatter yourself." 

The Doctor pointed at him like a pet. "Stay in bed. Conserve your energy. I've laid in a course." 

"You could have laid in a drummer." 

A pause. "That didn't even make _sense!_ " 

"Only because you think you're the only one who can be clever! Just because you've got a flying blue box doesn't make you that special!" 

"As opposed to blue balls, which _do?_ "

A moment, and Dom turned over huffily, wrapping the blankets back up to his neck. "Fuck your clever. And fuck you." 

"Not going to comment." He sounded like he was close to the door, on his way out. They weren't _angry_ , exactly, but as Dom imagined the Doctor laughing silently all the way back to the flight deck, he couldn't help the indignation that arose. 

"Wanker," he spat in response. 

"Oi, which reminds me, don't even _think_ about it when I leave! I want you mobile when we get where we're going." 

"If I did, which I won't, I wouldn't be thinking about _you!_ "

_Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. A much better liar than Matt, but still. Liar._

"Excellent! Who, then?" 

He thought of the last hot woman he'd laid eyes on. "Desi!" 

They just couldn't stop shouting. 

"Yeah? Really? Want to know something about Desdetellaica? Do you know why I left her? She wanted babies! Which for a Cydonian means that I would have been impregnated and left carrying anywhere from ten to twenty eggs for approximately seventeen Earth months. And the best part is – she wouldn't have even needed my _consent_! Where do I get my _wacky unwarranted fears_ now, Dominic?" 

A long silence. The shouting match was over. 

Matt had won.

"Boner kill enough for you?" 

"Bloody _terrifying._ "

Dom counted off the beats in his head. One. Two. Three. Matt began to tap on the door frame. Six. Seven. "We're returning that plaid jacket, like you asked, by the way." 

As if winning the not-argument weren't enough, did he _always_ have to keep some thoughtful gesture on hand just to make Dom feel shitty about things?


	7. Chapter 7

Since he first visited The Grid, the Doctor had always been fascinated by it. This particular time 'round, it was orbiting near Camydrona in the shadow of its fifth and largest moon, satellite to a satellite. Though it was the year 5799 and technology that knew better existed, it didn't happen to exist on Camydrona. That's how P.T. operated, that's how The Grid had always kept itself all cloak and dagger. To insufficiently advanced scanning systems and the naked eye as well, it was nothing more than a rock, a dead star. Simply floating, nothing more than an object in space. The Doctor stared at it on the viewscreen in front of him and laughed inwardly, shaking his head at the sheer beauty of the longest con he'd ever known. Which is why he kept coming back. P.T. knew him well enough – and feared him well enough – to have a standing order in place within the ranks of The Grid to allow the TARDIS free passage through the façade at any time, without question. 

Normally he came by just to chat, just to pass the time and be immensely entertained. This time, he wanted answers, and knew that there was no better place to turn than to the finest Purveyor of Antiquities in the known cosmos. 

"Antiquities" being, of course, a misnomer. P.T. dealt in counterfeit artifacts from dead civilizations, pawning them off at exorbitant cost to citizens of planets that wouldn't know a real relic if it fell out of the sky and hit them on the head. He was a grassroots con artist who had started early in Terran forgeries, from old Earth art to machinery to footballs. As his empire grew, however, so did his clientele searching for that one little something from that one little planet no one had heard from in thousands of years. P.T. grew his business, and his employees, and his account operators. He was nothing more than the ringmaster of an unimaginably profitable circus, hence the alias. 

The Grid was his home, a massive and mobile base of operations hidden away within the projected façade of a dead star. Mass production took place, there were assembly lines and small factories, warehouses upon warehouses full of what the Doctor was often bowled over to hear that otherwise perfectly sane, sentient life forms were willing to purchase with usable currency. 

If he was so good at forgeries, the Doctor had asked him once, early in their acquaintance, why didn't he just counterfeit money? 

"Simply," P.T. had told him, one hand pouring the wine, second stroking his mustache, third petting his prized pet Eomzian lizard, and fourth tipping back the first of many libations that night, "that's not fun. This is show business, here. I get to be a – how did they used to put it on Earth?" 

"A rock star." 

"Exactly!" He was a portly man who would have been barrel-chested and hulking even without the four arms to consider. The Doctor had met with him last looking like a different person, with a more dignified face and a completely different personality. He wondered how an honest-to-goodness rock star air would sit with P.T., who did not like to be upstaged.

Honestly, he didn't care. This wasn't a social call. 

He'd put up a hailing signal three minutes ago. Finally, it was answered.

"Who is this? You're using an old code, you know." 

The Doctor leaned over the speaker box and grinned. "Oh, hullo! Is this Frell? I think I remember your voice, love!" 

A moment. Some mumbling in the background. At last, a sigh. "What brings you back, then, Doctor?" 

If his memory served him (it always did), Frell was a short, bird-like female of the Taenoo species from a few star systems away. Relative to The Grid's usual travels, she was close to home. "Let's just say it's important for once." He held his finger on the transmission button, reminded of speaking from the sound booth in a studio, and let the message sink in before releasing it. 

A minute passed, and then two. So many security channels and privacy filters were being screened and opened, his identity being passed around to every employee and operator present inside the façade. They were coordinating as, no doubt, P.T. was being pulled away from nothing spectacularly pressing. The man hadn't actually done anything laborious or administrative since he was in his early 100's. He was 200-ish now. 

Frell's voice, easy on the ears, came back through the speaker with a more protocol-friendly tone. "Come on in through the portal nearest your position. We've got you covered on our end. P.T. says he'll be happy to meet with you in twenty minutes, and do you need anything in particular right away?" 

"Yeesssss," he said thoughtfully, "tell him I need information on Jhinzi technology and known strategies…and any remedy he might know of or have on hand for a Vidia bite." 

She swore loudly in her native tongue. The TARDIS couldn't even find a close translation. "You aren't bit, are you?" 

"No, no, no. But my traveling companion is."

He hummed while he waited for her to respond, choosing to ignore the urgency in her last question as he thought of how exactly he would start off the conversation with P.T., let him know that they weren't there for his bullshit or vaporing. 

A bit of commotion and some frantic key taps came through the speaker before she addressed him hastily: "We'll pull you in with our berth tethers, get you here quicker. Why didn't you mention how serious this was?" 

Puzzled, the Doctor actually chuckled at what he considered to be an over-reaction. "Well, it can't kill him." 

"…well, no, but I don't think you want an hysteric on your hands, either." 

The Doctor started at this, screwing his face up. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, don't you know that? Vidia bugs are all over the jungle down on Taenoo. Takes about five days, but the poison will turn anyone mad. Brain-eating parasite, really nasty business." 

_Desi, that bitch._

Shoddy research. Dominic had been right. The Doctor purposefully didn't push the talk button when he mumbled "fuck me…" and dragged a palm over his face. As a loud whine followed a few clunking, slamming sounds, the TARDIS entered The Grid and the Doctor leaned into the core. 

_Please, P.T., come through for me on this…_

"What's going on?" the voice behind him was startling, and he was certainly not used to being startled. When he turned around to see Dom standing at the entrance to the flight deck, he didn't really know what to say. Luckily, Dom went on, pulling the earbuds of his iPod out and laying them over his shoulders, "the noise woke me up." 

"You brought your iPod?" His first words should probably have been something of a warning, but that would have been awkward, especially considering the roller-coaster of emotions they'd already shared that day. The Doctor was too worried to be awkward. He wanted to punch the TARDIS for being so wrong, so sloppy, and mostly for putting him in a position where he would need to admit it. 

"Yeah, it was in my back pocket when you brought me here. What's wrong with that?" 

"Nothing! Just…weird. Your jeans are too tight for me not to have noticed that." 

Dom advanced on the core, sighing, taking the stairs carefully. "Not too forward to say you might have been slightly preoccupied with the front end, is it?" 

"Not too forward, but also wrong. Quite the contrary." In fact, he found his eyes wandering downward as Dom passed. He seemed staid. Quiet. Ambulatory, but only just.

"Right, then. Get a good look at the bum. As for this, it's nice to have it," he referred to the iPod, lifting one of the wires a little bit. He looked so sad, and the Doctor wanted nothing more than the ferret out exactly what he'd been thinking on. He might not have all the answers or reassurances, but knowing would help him to at least fix the problem. Luckily, one of Dom's many talents was summing up a dozen disconnected feelings in one line; the gift of brevity: "Right before this whole place shook and banged around, I was lying in bed, listening to some Röyksopp, and I almost got the impression that I wasn't halfway across time and space, being hurtled toward a destiny I never asked for." 

"That's a little harsh." Though it hadn’t sounded so. The Doctor tried not to sound it, either. 

_Far away. This ship has taken me far away… never meant for that to have this sort of applicability._

"It's the truth, though, isn't it? Whatever. The iPod is the one meaningful thing I have left that's mine. Well, besides you," he tacked on with a cheeky snort and they chuckled, half-heartedly, together, "what are you watching, then?" Dom found the viewscreen and joined him in staring. The interior of The Grid had come into view, a hive of connected capsules and stations, resembling a horizontal honeycomb from their viewpoint. "Christ, where are we?" 

"It's called The Grid. I think I know someone who could provide a cure for your…thing." 

They shared a silent look, acknowledging the Doctor's sudden lapse in perspicacity but knowing that nothing needed to be said. Dom made a thoughtful noise and watched as they cruised in swiftly to land on a wide open landing strip in the middle of the array. 

P.T. was a man of business, despite their friendship. If he scrounged something up for the Doctor, it was going to come at a price. 

That, he'd worry about later. 

On the landing pad they were about to be checked for weapons before a direct communiqué from P.T. put an end to that business. Dom could be seen doing his best to curry up enough energy to flirt with the most buxom-looking security guard, and the Doctor rolled his eyes as they were escorted into the first of many long hallways. 

A doorway led to another doorway led to a more heavily guarded doorway led to the main office of The Grid. It looked somewhat like a Victorian Men's Club lounge combined with a late 20th century chain restaurant, with (genuine) Terran artifacts displayed in every free inch of space. When P.T. greeted them he held two arms up happily while the other two were busy writing something in a ledger. His laugh rolled out jolly and smirking, no doubt a response to the Doctor's current appearance. 

"Oi, want to say something, then?" Putting up his toughest front, he approached the considerably larger body and acted like he was ready to lay down a beating. P.T. stood, at least three heads taller than he was and wearing an expectedly garish suit, and put up four dukes. The Doctor bounced a little bit, in true Muhammad Ali style, before jabbing at his chest. In response, P.T. grabbed him and pulled him close with two arms, messing with his hair as he did.

"Why would you ever choose this body?"

"I like this body! And I don't get to choose them! Shut up. What." 

He pushed away the moment P.T. gave him enough leeway to do so, and the two laughed together as if the whole thing were some well-rehearsed play, a joke to which only they were privy. Turning back around, the Doctor noted Dom's confused expression, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "This guy is a pain in the arse." Then, back to P.T.: "Here's your jacket, by the way."

Dom has been holding the thing, and was luckily too languid to make a fuss about it. The Doctor pitched the terrifyingly styled thing in P.T.'s direction. It was caught in mid-air. "Thank you! I was beginning to think I'd never get this back, you brat!" 

"Oh, I'm a brat now? Because of the--" he pointed up and down his visage and body, nodding, sticking his bottom lip out, "nice. Not too imaginative, but nice." To Dom, he clarified: "Called me a geezer, before. How long has it been, then, since we've seen each other? For you, I mean. Frankly, I lose track." 

"You last showed up about five months ago, from what I recall. But never mind that," he crossed both sets of arms over his chest, eyeing Dom intently, "is he the one with the Vidia bite?" 

"Yeah." They both answered at the same time, Dom was looking rather unimpressed with the overly-appointed room and the overly-appointed conman. The Doctor was quietly proud of him. P.T. let out a low whistle. "That's not an easy thing to cure. Of course there's the antidote we keep in the company infirmary just in case one of our "adjusters" runs afoul of that sort of thing, but it's not simply for sale." 

"Trade, then?" the Doctor said powerfully, his mouth not quite prepared to form the 'r' despite his enthusiasm. Thankfully, Dom bit back a laugh. 

"Don't get to choose your speech impediments, either, do you? That's a shame," P.T. sighed, and again the Doctor shook his head gloriously in ennui. It could be argued that they behaved like uni friends who had, at the height of their friendship, delighted only in punching one another after a night of pub-crawling. Usually they did laugh and exchange witticisms even more than this. The Doctor hoped silently that Dom was taking note as well as he could of the solemnity with which he was treating the situation. Of course, Dom had no idea that the Vidia parasite was eating his brain. 

"Slag off." 

"A "twade" is fine. But it needs to be something especially valuable. Something we're not already producing. Of course, we have a fixed wish list…" 

_If he says anything about Etro shirts, I'm going to get cuffed._

"…religious icons are always high on the list," by that he meant old gossip magazines, but the Doctor would explain that to Dom later, "but they don't keep very well. We have enough clothing. Dolls are good. We're full up on jewels and baubles. The bottom of that market has fallen out. Big right now is art. Utensils." 

"Like for making art, then?" 

"That's right." 

"How about musical instruments?" 

"Hmm." P.T. leaned back and cocked his head, considering.

Dom leaned close to the Doctor and whispered: "You can't possibly be thinking—" 

"I can just remove the screen, reinstall it as its supposed to be…all the old mechanisms are there, I'd just be giving up the guitar! Don't think I'm _that_ attached." 

But he was. And P.T. must have noticed the fevered whispering, honing in on it like a true businessman as something that indicated a subject of great interest, commotion, and value. The Doctor's heart sank and he bit the inside of his cheek in an attempt at impassivity.

"What do you have that I might want?" 

"A guitar," he said thickly, defiantly, "genuine, circa 21st century Earth."

"Wait," Dom spoke up, and when P.T.'s gaze shifted to him, he lifted the earbuds from his shoulders and reached back to extract the iPod from his back pocket, "how about this?" 

Stunned, especially considering what Dom had just finished telling him on the TARDIS, the Doctor grabbed his shoulder. "Wait a fucking minute."

"This is quicker," Dom hissed at him, "I'd rather give this up than make you hand over that Manson. Just promise me—" but they were distracted from their semi-private talk by P.T., who was suddenly right up on them, reaching out with trembling hands for the device. The Doctor made a mental note to ask later about that promise.

Dom stuttered on an explanation, notably uncomfortable with P.T.'s closeness. "It's an iPod…" 

"I know. I know, I've just never seen one. You have no idea how many requests I get for these. My boys…this is worth more than just—" he suddenly held one hand up to his mouth, speaking into what appeared to be a communicator he'd recently gotten implanted directly into his skin. The Doctor cringed at it. Tacky, "—Pasik, will you bring the Vitia antidote out from the infirmary directly? Thank you."

"It's just an iPod." 

"Dom, shut up," the Doctor told him _sotto_ , "you just saved your own life. Not only that, it may be a bargaining chip." 

P.T. continued to gush, but after only a couple of minutes the Doctor was already fidgety, twitchy, and finally, mouthy. "So what can you tell me about the Jhinzi?" 

A fell atmosphere dropped over the room so quickly that Dom actually shifted in discomfort. The Doctor and P.T. eyed each other crucially, as if a metaphorical gun had been leveled.

"I want to know why you want to know." His fat thumb rested unmoving on the iPod as he said this without so much as blinking.

"Uh, have you gathered, yet, who he is?" The Doctor asked, a cocksure swagger in his voice as he pointed firmly at Dom. P.T. may have been many things, but ignorant was not one of them. Besides that, the Doctor was not remiss of all the pondering looks that had been fixed on the Princess since they'd first arrived. 

"Yes, but I wasn't going to say anything. Figured it was a bit of a humiliating business." 

"Not at all. When we're from, the Jhinzi have moved against Dolexaro. We need to know whatever you do, because that's where and when we're heading next."

"I can't believe you summed that up so simply." Dom interjected, ruining the dramatic pause for effect. 

"When I want, I can be succinct." 

P.T. had turned around, and was ambling back to his desk, taking his time to arrange his knowledge however best it would suit them all. Dom watched wistfully as the iPod went with him, but when the Doctor studied his expression he found him quick enough to focus on the greater things at stake. As if sensing that someone were watching him, Dom glanced over, and narrowed his eyes with a curious expression.

"What?" 

"Nothing, just. Thank you." The Doctor cleared his throat and looked ahead once more, hooking his thumbs where his braces clipped to his trousers. They deftly avoided any actual tenderness or gratitude for the time being. 

As the Doctor began to want for a white noise machine, elevator music, anything to break the tension of the prevailing silence, a non-uniformed employee burst into the room, small package in hand. 

"Please just tell me that's not a shot," Dom drawled, his strength already fading again, dangerously close to loss of motor function. The figure who had entered with the antidote left with the iPod.

"No. Of course not!" The Doctor laughed, and plucked it from P.T. as he approached. The employee was running back out through the door with Dom's iPod, and thankfully Dom's eyes followed him, giving the Doctor enough time to hide the small needle on the tip of what appeared to be more like a piercing gun than a proper syringe. "He won't feel much pain, will he? He'll never fucking shut up about it if he feels a lot of pain." 

"No, of course not!" P.T. mimicked his whispering as the Doctor expertly unpackaged the small vial of bright green liquid drug and slipped it into the dispensary tube. 

"What are you two on abou—?" 

"Oh my god, look at the rack on her." The Doctor suddenly pointed past them both, and the semi-coherent and highly predictable Dom was quick enough to shift his gaze and turn his head. A long slope of smooth neckline was in view, along with the prominent rise of the most crucial vein. 

With confident precision, the Doctor pointed the syringe-gun against the spot and with a dull "thwuck" sound the whole thing was over, a rush of antidote delivered into Dom's blood stream just like that. 

**_"Fuck!"_** he shouted, grabbing the spot immediately, but didn't actually follow up the exclamation with anything verbally corroborative. He just glared at the Doctor, eyes wide and accusatory, though a bit of color was already rising to his cheeks. 

"Now, this antidote is going to boost your adrenaline levels pretty fiercely after about an hour's time," P.T. addressed him, collecting the empty syringe from the Doctor, Dom would not look away, still leveling a very severe and disgusted face at his friend (if he could even be called that in this particular situation). "Judging on your build, for about five or six hours, while the cure takes hold. You'll need to sweat it out. I'd suggest upping your physical activity, otherwise you're just likely to pass out from the chemical rush. That would be bad." 

"Well, we have been running a lot lately." Dom remarked, and the Doctor was quick to pick up on _that_ tone in his voice. 

"Oh, good. He's back to being a harpy, we're fine here!" Thumbs up. P.T. snorted as the Doctor threw an arm around Dom's shoulder. Dom shrugged it off and scoffed, which, of course, only prompted a laugh in response. But then, as quick as the flip of a switch, the Doctor trained his eyes on P.T. once more. "Now that you're through with the pleasant distraction…the Jhinzi still need to be discussed." 

P.T. leaned against his desk and gave a deathly sigh. With his ruddy complexion, it was difficult to tell, but he looked a little flushed at the request. "The Jhinzi invaded the Pleiades a thousand years ago, now. When you're from, I can't imagine, but it's a little disheartening to learn how far they've gotten. The 4th star system is the most expertly defended, and not only that, it's directly in the center. To get there it would have to mean they've conquered or forced the surrender of all the others. Sad business. As it stands, the 1st and 6th systems have managed to fall, but the 3rd – thanks to having the armada to do it – is pushing them back, trying to work out some sort of cease fire. These are only scant details, though, recovered from off-star transmissions and homing boxes. The most terrifying part is that there have been no visual transmissions. None at all. No one knows what they look like—" 

"Oh, still?" 

P.T. nodded and went on. "—or what their ships look like, if there are even ships at all. No one's come forth to supply aide, and even the Shadow Proclamation is still in fits over what to do about them, because no one, as yet, has been able to determine what they _are._ " 

"Bogeymen." Dom muttered, his voice decidedly more alive than it had been five minutes ago. The Doctor agreed with the summation, and the hitch of terror in Dom's tone. 

"The most we have is this," P.T. sighed and walked around behind his desk. He produced a tablet, about the size of a vinyl LP sleeve, and touched the top of it, obviously activating some technology that made the thing come to life with images and words. It was written in a language that the Doctor did not automatically recognize, even as he drew closer and twisted his lip with his fingers. He hated being so out of practice. "The Ringgel wrote this account of a Jhinzi invasion about six hundred years ago. All of the galactic community has collectively debunked it, considering that the Ringgel are…well…" 

"The Ringgel are sort of like monks, nuns," the Doctor explained to Dom, "only they retreated underground to serve their Creator and in the process they've gone blind over the years. They're a completely subterranean species. If they're trying to provide a visual account, it's not going to hold much water. Their fanaticism also lends them little credibility. They have a tendency to…hm…" his fingers fluttered over his bottom lip, trying to put it politely. No other word would do, though, "lie." 

P.T. nodded assent of this evaluation, and pointed at the tablet. "It reads – loosely – 'the invaders came from the sky without transport; they are of cold flame and nothing more. The Creator beholds no shape for them, gives them no form on which to place our judgment. Speaking to us, the invaders expressed their disappointment in our ways, and so were condemned by the Creator for their failure to accept Its power and might.' – blah, blah, blah. Basically what those of us who believe this have gathered is that the Jhinzi are formless. Of course, that's obvious. And that, somehow, they rely on being seen to initiate any attack. What this means…we can't be sure. Whether they create their own form or rely on illusion – either way it's a little terrifying and I wish you wouldn't be getting yourselves into this." 

"Can't help it, I've got a planet to go save." Dom spoke up. The Doctor held off at gaping, and only smirked, pointing at him while offering P.T. a sort-of-proud expression. 

"Well, he's in higher spirits. Ah, Pasik, you're back!" P.T. held out his arms (all of them), and the blue-skinned (and scaled, the Doctor noticed – oh, a Bezaguisean) employee took the steps up to P.T.'s desk, "do we have what we need?" 

"Worked perfectly. Not only the electronics, but the digital files included. Shall we begin contacting some accounts?" He placed the iPod back in one of P.T.'s hands. The boss man was chuckling jovially. 

"Of course! Start reproduction immediately. Separate the digital files. Those could fetch great profit on their own." 

"Digital files? My music? My…" Dom stopped, glanced at the Doctor, and then suspiciously at P.T., "…my porn?" 

P.T. sucked in a delighted breath and gazed down at the iPod worshipfully. "There was ancient Earth _pornography_ on this? Oh, my cup runneth over! My boys," he held the iPod out in Dom's direction. The Doctor and he exchanged a confused glance, and only after a few seconds did Dom reach out and reclaim it, watching P.T. the entire time lest the offer be a trick, "you've done my business a great service today, I'd like to offer you an extra reward." 

"I'm sorry," Dom held up his iPod and tried not to appear too overly cynical, "why am I getting this back, exactly?" 

Still wildly happy, P.T. clapped two of his hands as he laughed. "We only had to duplicate the physical mold and copy the digital software. Of course we wouldn't sell a _real_ one. And I couldn't think of pilfering such a priceless artifact for my own consumption. I prefer old cassette tape players, personally." He chortled again, amused no end by Dom's naivete. 

"Well, don't look at _me_ , I had no idea he'd give the thing back, either!" The Doctor defended himself against yet another dagger-shooting look from the increasingly hyper Princess. Dom shook his head and re-sheathed the iPod in his back pocket. 

P.T. cleared his throat to regain their attention. "Also you can have 1000 credits toward any items in my warehouse." 

The Doctor slitted his eyes and sneered. _Thanks, but no thanks._ "We don't want any shoddy knockoffs, but thank you." 

"Not the warehouse, brat. My warehouse." 

At this, the Doctor's eyes lit up. "Oh," he exchanged a glance with Dom, "oh…" 

"What does that even mean?" Dom hissed at him. 

"The real shit." It took a few moments, but the two of them turned to each other and immediately devolved into a grinning, triumphant mess of laughter.

About an hour later, after traversing the expansive personal warehouse of The Grid's most elite collector, Dom had managed to spend 700 of their 1000 credits on construction of a new outfit. 

"All right, I am completely shopped out." When the Doctor shot him a judging look, he was met with a snappy: "I can blame you, you know. You're the one who put me on a Chanel kick." 

Indeed. He was zipping up the slim-fitting, quilted black jacket and inspecting his reflection carefully in P.T.'s mirror. The Doctor just stood back and watched. No use saying anything. Dom looked unbelievably good in Chanel, it was true. The skinnies, however, were hardly distinguishable from those he had just been wearing, and the Doctor could never figure out what made such normal-looking shoes so damned expensive and _different_. 

"Admittedly, the shades look really good." 

"Don't they?" Dom was characteristically stuck on himself now, adrenaline pumping as he moved about with more vigor than usual, though it was still considerably slower than Matt on a normal day. 

The left the warehouse on their way to the landing pad, the Doctor humming a disconnected, dramatic melody as he left seemingly empty-handed. "Did you find _anything?_ " 

"Oh, I did!" the Doctor said proudly and mysteriously, grinning. 

"Hmm. Don't know how much I trust you, with that tone of voice." 

"It's nothing much. Don't worry yourself with it," he swatted at the air with his hand, and then placed the same hand across Dom's shoulders, leaning close, "next stop, Dolexaro?" 

"I suppose it's the best plan." Dom sighed, "just pack up and fly away, is that it?" 

"Yeah. P.T. got what he needed out of us. We interrupted his day plenty already. Never been big on goodbyes, that man. Can't blame him. I don't tend to give them." 

Dom looked down at him crossly.

"Oi, don't give me that look! Don't you be worrying about me, now." The landing pad was in sight, and a few of the workers nodded in farewell as they passed. The TARDIS appeared to be held in security by a web of laser light, from their distance. 

"As long as you promise."

Ah. He'd almost forgotten that part about a promise. So that's what it was about. "I don't like promising. But I'll promise you." 

"Promise me what?" 

The Doctor sighed heavily, tightening his grip on Dom's shoulder to communicate his displeasure at having the words wrenched out of him in such a way. "I promise I'll never…hold on," he stopped, and stopped Dom along with him, and turned his head back, cocking one eyebrow. A long pause followed, "you're not going to want to hear this." 

"What?" 

"New shoes and all. This really won't sit well with you." 

"Doctor?" 

His speaking voice went up an octave in annoyance. "I'm also becoming _increasingly_ disappointed in all my old friends. Though I suppose you have that effect on people." He sighed darkly.

"—fuck is going on?"

_"RUN!"_


	8. Chapter 8

Nothing before had ever seemed as far away as the TARDIS was at that moment. Especially considering that, seconds ago, Dom had been trying his best to walk slowly, to draw out the time they had before holing up and taking off again. Some form of "you're fucking kidding me" slipped his lips before he realized that the Doctor was hauling him by the back of his collar and forcing him down, and that's when he felt the gun shot. 

Gun shot. Whizzing far too close to his head. Being pushed and pulled at the same time, thinking and struggling to keep up physically and mentally. This wasn't real, this didn't happen in science fiction. There weren't guns – real guns that made terrifying, booming noises and sent anything but lasers or photon beams or particle rays. 

Terror, and a seizing feeling in his chest, like everything at once was combining to make sure he didn't fuck this up or fall down, and then he realized that the Doctor was saying something – no use trying to understand, no use trying to even pretend. There were mere yards to go and time was slowing exponentially.

And there was another shot. He saw it hit the TARDIS, saw it dig into the wood, actually was able to focus on that spot in the split-second that lasted minutes…hours…

Grabbed again. The door of the TARDIS went flying open in front of him, and he was hauled off-kilter and shoved inside. Then he realized that the Doctor was Matt, and the look on his face in the moment that they actually met eyes was one he had seen before. A fiery look, almost frightening and certainly off-putting, that meant he was unbelievably angry. 

Matt took another second to get inside, to swing the door shut, another boom and a dull hammer of a sound against the entrance suggesting that he'd narrowly missed another gunshot in that one second that seemed like minutes…hours…

Even Dom's own thoughts were like pirate transmissions eerie with static, slipping his senses in bursts. No use. On his knees, face down over his hands, he wasn't actually as out of breath as he thought he might be. Shocked, though, yes. Of course. When all the warnings were being handed out and even when he was running from Cydonians, none of it had been real. None of it had been _relatable_. 

None of it could kill him. 

Over his shoulder, when he finally turned, there was Matt. A couple of seconds seemed like minutes, hours, but there was a tacit electricity that passed between them: a fire, a faith. He realized that the look in Matt's eyes had faded. A deep breath, and he was the Doctor again, but they were starting to blend together. The self-same men were blending like the two realities Dom had been living, the one that could never kill him and the one that was obviously (now) very intent on doing so. 

The one Matt had at once shielded him from and protected him within.

It was clearer. It was getting there. Matt went leaping down the risers, pulling the braces from his shoulders violently, rubbing his hands together, kicking and turning and pressing and generally lashing out at the central core until he grabbed the guitar. When his fingers found the neck of it, his shoulders eased (slightly), his grip was less forceful (slightly), and Dom saw him draw a deeper breath and strap it on, hitting a switch that wasn't part of the TARDIS as he did.

Dom knew the feeling of takeoff now, the feeling of flight. He knew the persistent fuzzy murmur the TARDIS made when it moved, and it had become somewhat of a comfort. He crawled to the risers and sat, flopping his arms over his knees, his heart still beating wildly. He wouldn't mention anything about it, yet. Matt knew. He had to know. 

The turgid soliloquy began right on cue. "Are you okay? That wasn't anyone in P.T.'s employ, and I'll tell you why: because he's still trying to sort out a breach in security and that's how come we haven't received any sort of apology or denial or alibi or fuck-all – he has his bases covered like that, and on top of it I don't believe for a moment that he would be so _stupid_ , now that the moment is behind me and I realize that my snap condemnation of my friends with a sweeping generalization was, in fact, hasty. You're okay, right? Nothing out of place? There's a dampener on the TARDIS that's external – like someone, obviously whomever got past The Grid's impeccable security and managed to try and assassinate you, put a slow-mo dirty bomb on the outside that's giving me a whole world of shit right now while I'm trying to get us in proper flight. Damnit. Damnit. _Fuck!_ " He obviously had reached his limit of trying with the guitar, and hung it in its place before starting the requisite skittering around, this time on some sort of mechanical mission. Dom watched him as he passed, sonic screwdriver at the ready.

"You have to be fine – you're being quiet. Knowing what we know now – which is admittedly not much – I'd venture to say that we're both tired of avoiding this battle, right? Let's fucking get back to Dolexaro, let's take your planet back before you're offed and I have to feel really, really, really bad that I never got to fuck you before I turned out to be the cause of your death! Hand me that!" Suddenly he was reaching up between the risers, hand sticking out between Dom's calves, pointing at a small black toolbox set into a locking shelf. Not particularly wanting to walk, Dom simply bent over, crawled the small distance, and retrieved it with a grunt, turning around to hand it beneath the landing to the lower level. Matt's eyes were a different sort of fiery, now. Sensing that he required some sort of validation for his speech thus far, Dom nodded. Tacit, still. Just go on. 

_Just keep talking._

"It's going to be a long trip. Fucking sabotage. Even if I get this fix put in – which I will, momentarily – it will be two, three Earth days, maybe. You know, I am _so_ ready to look a Jhinzi in the eyes! I don't care if P.T. says they're probably formless beings, I'll give them a form and then I'll kick one in the face!" He appeared from behind a large panel replete with wires and flashing lights, face adorably enraged. "I mean, how dare they! You don't fuck with the Pleaides! The most respected civilized star cluster in the universe, who do the Jhinzi think they are! Who are they, anyway?" His tone was bouncing from thoughtful to angry to almost comical. The panel was slammed shut and he gave it a satisfied, manly nod before proceeding back up to the middle level. He shifted gears mid-stride, and Dom was definitely noticing the swagger in his gait, the more catlike way he was moving around, sneering more, obviously protective, obviously still fired up from the chance encounter with the assassin. 

"How the _fuck_ dare anyone? Even a bounty hunter of the highest caliber – and I know several – would be in over her head to attempt something like that, an assassination attempt on the _Princess of the Dolexari Empire_ , being escorted by a _Time Lord!_ Listen, would you mind if we take a small detour? It's on our way, about –" he glanced at the core, wiping his hands down with a white scarf that looked to be strung with beads through the fringe, "—a day out? I have to find out what that was all about, because I've been harboring this vain sort of assurance that nothing was going to happen, since no one is so stupid. So this has to be a ruse. Either a ruse, or…" he got distracted, watching the way Dom was watching him, approaching, leaning against the railing nearby, sticking his hips back as he allowed his consciousness to stream out loud. "Would they even _have_ eyes, if seeing them gave them a form? Hm. I'll bet they're ugly as shit. Probably jealous. Jealous, obviously," he took the risers and looked like he was on his way to inspect the spot where a bullet (though it was probably some sonic space bullet or something) had buried itself in the exterior, "that has to be it. _You,_ by the way—" he turned on the last step and took it backwards, fluidly, gracefully on one heel and then the next, pointing at Dom. Dom, who was on his feet and inspecting his new clothes for any damage, who stopped suddenly as he was addressed, "look absolutely edible, and I hope that's not weird at this point since we've already been through the snogging and almost groping bit, and wouldn't you know that the last thought I had before I started to actually worry about what the _fuck_ I was doing back there just now was regretting having not just gone with it, yesterday. This morning. Was it?"

He took a breath, turned around, and nearly ran into Dom. His voice was soft, chasing a gasp. "Oh, hello." 

Dominic grabbed him by his bony shoulders and slammed him back against the door of the TARDIS. Matt was going to say something, might have even protested, but this time there wasn't the comfort of a too-soft bed or the laziness of domesticity urging Dom to play house. There was the hard reality of knowing that it was reality, the solid forms and lines of the flight deck. It was at once warm and cold, at once organic and mechanical, the perfect place to say: "I feel like I'm going to pass out." And the perfect place to do something about it.

He caught Matt's bottom lip and sucked on it for only a second before he bit down, all while the trapped body struggled slightly beneath him, willingly acquiescing and yet still not quite ready to give up the power of his control. Control, at least of the "self" variety, would be short in supply if Dom had anything to do with it. One hand was beneath the thin t-shirt, pushing up against Matt's chest, and the other was between his legs, deliberate, strong, and insistent, finding the stiffening curve of what would not be ignored while he was in charge. 

A different approach, yes, but he'd almost gotten killed. Matt had saved him. Matt had protected him. That look in his eyes, that hadn't been anger at someone's audacity in a simplistic sense…it had been a true seizure of fury that someone, something, anytime had dared to harm, had dared to encroach upon that which was _his_ to protect and _his_ to—

_Love? Too soon. Obey? Too unlikely. Cherish? Too poncey. Fuck? Now, that seemed about right._

All those others probably factored in, really, somehow, but nothing overwhelmed like an unspoken need stretching back years and years that had only received the vaguest, most flippant of attentions before. 

Reflecting as he kissed him with a measured ferocity, Dom actually moaned into the comfort of memories, the promise held by all those frustrations and tabled questions. Matt's shirt felt almost thin enough to tear into, between his fingers, but Dom went the less destructive route at the last minute, jerking it up to Matt's shoulders – Matt, who actually looked puzzled even when he lifted his arms and allowed himself to be divested. "What. What. What. Wait." 

He kissed Matt's neck, half with his lips and half with scraping teeth, as he unzipped his Chanel jacket and pressed against him, the thin undershirt below doing little to interrupt the heat between their bodies, doing little to muffle the feeling of a racing heartbeat. They were so flash and high fashion these days, with all these stylists and all these top shelf designer labels. But Dom shrugged off the jacket and was stunned at the contrast between them. Dom, all simple black undershirt and the darkest denim he'd been able to find. Matt was white-on-white. Photo negatives. A twinset. "I want to see you naked." He answered him hoarsely at last, lips just below his earlobe.

Matt knew what he looked like naked, and he knew that Dom knew as well. "Ew, why?" he actually let the words escape, fingers lost for a few moments in Dom's hair, before remembering his self-assurance. "I mean, of course you do. Not so straight now, are you?" 

"Not the point. You saved me," Dom said, looking at him as he found one of Matt's wrists and then the other, "back there, you put yourself knowingly in harm's way, to save me." 

_This is not cloying, this is not over-emotional, this is not about all those petty Earth labels. It's not about adrenaline, either, else I doubt I'd be talking. I….fucking hell, I actually want to do everything to this man._

A wall of mock impudence went up when Dom showed enough gall to pin his wrists above his head, then. Matt snuffed at the air. "Maybe," as the wrists were held in place with one firm hand, he bucked his hips up defiantly, displeased at being ignored below the belt. Unoccupied fingers fluttered down over his face, making him wrinkle his nose as Dom laughed. "It's my job." 

"Is it? Is it your job? Because it seems to me that you have a tendency to renege on a lot of promises and agreements and _jobs_ ," there were obviously a few jobs on Dom's mind, none of them having anything to do with contractual obligation, "I'm not trying to get anything out of you that you're too proud to say; I'm just saying, it turned me on." 

"You've got," Matt stopped talking and guttered a half-word as Dom's hand passed unmistakably over his lap on its way to unbutton his trousers, shucking them to the thighs with eerie precision and quickness. _No pants. Should have figured._ "—dear fuck. Massive amounts of adrenaline have nothing to do with this, obviously." 

"You are a mouthy bastard sometimes. Hush now." His hand tightened without pretense or teasing around Matt's cock. The veins in the slender wrists rose against his other grip as fists clenched and unclenched in response. Matt's body went lax for just a moment, a moment that was too quick to be commented on but also too pronounced to be ignored. Dom lifted one eyebrow and watched his face as it softened, sure fingers stroking with only casual awareness of a rhythm.

"Ah! Stop it, stop it." 

"Stop it?" Dom smiled, perhaps even more turned on by the conflict playing over Matt's face. 

"No! No I don't mean—I mean this isn't doing you any good, is it? Wanking _me_ off? Oh yeah, great workout." 

Accepting that challenge, Dom tightened his grip, and corkscrewed his hand to palm the head of Matt's cock. A sharp breath and a shuddering abdomen rewarded his efforts as the bit of wetness aided a swifter motion. He didn't say anything; no need. There was little more he wanted to do than listen to the unexpectedly deep notes struck by Matt, to watch his eyes fluttering between open and closed, to enjoy the power he had, the control he managed to wrest even from the most controlling person he knew, a gift of servility offered him despite the as-yet-unknown fact that he was more than willing to give Matt all the control he desired if the situation held such exquisite promise.

 _Well, he does know how to use this,_ Dom squeezed a little bit harder, but began to slow his stroke, _I wonder how far that expertise encompasses, now. All those lifetimes, all those possibilities…_

_"Not so straight now, are you?"_

_…no, not if we’re using those labels. I want him to fuck me, adrenaline overload be damned. Could have done it three days ago for all the fuck I give._

Then he was letting go of Matt's wrists (though Matt continued crossing them for a few seconds, holding them in place as if Dom were still keeping them steady by sheer force of will). Then he was pushing down on his head.

"Ohhhh," the groan was needy as the fingers came off of his cock, too keyed up to noticed that Dom was tugging at his own belt, "no, you fucking tease. That's just—wait. What the fuck—" 

"Get on your knees," Dom growled. 

"What?" Suddenly coherence was reborn on his face, though he was already halfway down. 

"Get. On. Your. Knees." He pushed harder. He could feel a balm of sweat already on his forehead, already on his neck. The very act of demanding this of him was enough to spike his temperature. 

A few words of protest were, of course, volleyed at Dom, but to no avail. Matt's knees hit the floor with a satisfying sound, and a groan rolled out as Dom's fingers played in his hair, staring down as Matt kept his eyes on the floorboards of the entryway for the time being. "Don't take this as me being _subservient_ to you or anything. I'm doing this because I want to." 

"Because you want to what?" Sick of using one hand to do everything, Dom entrusted Matt to his new position and slipped his own belt through its loops so quickly that he actually felt the heat through the denim. 

"Don't put me through all that phone sex rubbish." Matt looked up, challenging as usual. His cock was half-mast, now, but still stood out enticing and lewd and wet dusky pink against his otherwise powder-white thighs. 

"Then be quiet and let me pretend you're being completely domesticated and subservient, instead." Dom's fingers curled in the dark hair, again, and, smiling, he pushed Matt's head back against the door. 

A beat. "Fine. I want to suck your cock." He breathed heavily with the words, a very real weight of desire adding a trace of desperation to his tone. The tenor went through Dom like a shock, settling between his legs. 

"Oh, that's… _brilliant._ " Dom reached out and placed his palms against the door, leaning forward as Matt ran one hand experimentally up the inside of his leg. "Don't be quick about it, either." 

"I'm intent on making you sweat. No need to worry, there." Before even blessing Dom with feeling of his long, perfect fingers pulling tooth by tooth at his zipper, his just cupped his crotch with the flat tip of his palm. Dom breathed through his nose, leaning over his outstretched arms, into the purchase of the door. "This is fun." Looking down, Dom caught sight of half of Matt's grin as he played with him, examining with his fingers, pressing, caressing. _God damn it, Matt, just touch me full on already._

Then Matt looked up at him from his position, and time stopped. Dom couldn't hold back a reverent breath. He even allowed a few words to escape. "Dear fuck, I need inside of your mouth right fucking now." 

Button, zipper, unexpected fumbling with unexpectedly slippery boxers, a giggle. Even the giggle went straight for Dom's already painfully hard cock, and he had to ask: "You've done this before, then?" 

"Might've." He shrugged, "not in this particular lifetime, I don't _think_. Maybe when I wasn't in full capacity, and then it couldn't have been very good, I don't imagine." He laced his fingers around Dom, looking up, smiling evilly again. Dom had to close his eyes. 

"Fuck. That feels amazing. Move your hand." 

"Don't want to." Defiant enough to play with him, eh, the bastard? But it must have been working. Matt, hand on his cock, fingers – _god damn everything, those fingers_ – laced gentle and tight and perfect. A moment he'd always hoped he would be coherent for, if the moment ever came.

"Well, your grip is pretty professional." 

"Professional?" 

"You know what I meant, bastard, don't stop. Come on," he actually moved his hips to hint at some much-needed friction, "move your hand." 

"You mean I'm a whore, Dominic?" 

He didn't. But it sounded too good. The way he said that word, the way he said it about himself, whether he was being cheeky or not. Brilliant. Too bloody brilliant and fucking hot on top of it. Dom took a good three seconds to respond, and even then all he could do was smile and go "Mmmmnnnn…" 

"Oh, god, you and _words_ …" But Matt's fingers tightened at this, and Dom rolled his head into the crook of his neck and shoulder, a longing groan his best reply. 

"I shouldn't be talking at all, should I?" Matt asked, his mouth near enough that the hot breath from his words brushed the tender tip of his cock, feathery torture. 

"No…no you shouldn’t." 

"Open your eyes." 

Immediately, Dom did as he was asked, looking down, watching. They stared at each other as Matt drew him into his mouth, engulfing him slowly and as deeply as he could with his first pass. Everything could have stopped – _it's enough, this is enough, this is everything and more than I never could admit I wanted_ – and it would have been a welcome assumption into the void. 

Dom picked up on only a slight quaver of insecurity and possible embarrassment, but as quick as a flash it was gone, and Matt was sucking harder, tongue rough and firm and pushing against his slit, swirling deftly around the head of his cock before drawing him in again, the movement seemingly guided by the prehensile magic of his tongue. 

_Never knew about that tongue before. Not personally, at least._

"Ohhh, oh god, Matthew." It was all he could say, and he kept saying it, a few variations on "fuck" and "shit", and always the "Matthew" he had managed to turn so lascivious when he said it. The words all stuck in his throat, lazy drawls seeming more pronounced than they really were.

Sweating, rolling his shoulders, palms flat and perspiring on the door of the TARDIS. Fuck, he was so close, and this was _Matt_ doing it, Matt who hadn't said a word, who was actually managing to remain quiet and take him deeper. Deeper. Deeper. Fucking balls deep, so enticing and obscene that Dom found himself jerking his hips into that mouth despite his promises not to. 

He didn’t need to correct himself for this. Matt's hands reached up and grabbed handfuls of soft flesh from behind, only encouraging the little jerks of his hips with deep humming vibrations that felt -

_So. Fucking. Good._

"Matthew. Fucking. Don't. Matthew. Almost. Fuckinggoingtocome…mmm goingtocome." 

With this the smooth hotness of Matt's unexpectedly and eagerly skillful mouth slid off, but the equally talented fingers returned, taking a page from Dom's book with an immediate, rapid stroke, pulling whimpers from Dom as he deigned to finish him violently. 

Matt was leaned back against the door again, and when Dom opened his eyes he realized he was the one being watched. And Matt was smirking and the smirk was so. Fucking. Maliciously. Sexy. _Who the fuck does he even think he is, fucker._

"Going to come, Matt." He managed to articulate more than before, his whole body equally chill and afire, the adrenaline serving his enjoyment of the moment more than any drug he'd ever tried. 

"So come." Matt ordered him without really ordering him, circle of fingers a blur near the tip of his cock, and when he finally realized with a protracted groan that he wasn't just going to be coming for him…he was going to be coming _on_ him…

It took some time for Dom to realize he was actually finished, but his knees still refused to agree with movement, and his arms seemed rooted into their position against the door. He panted down at Matt, the pale skin of his chest decorated with the paler splatter of come. 

"Oh…fuck…you did not just."

"Yeah, sorry," Matt's fingers played fondly, absently, in the warm wetness on his chest, "but I need to work up to, you know…that." Though somehow he seemed more than happy about the way things had worked out, this time around. 

"Don't. Don't apologize, that was hot as fuck," it only took a few more gulps and breaths for Dom to regain a good portion of his composure, "only would have been better if it had been on your face."

"I don't know that I'll work up to that." He said icily.

For a moment he looked down at him, incredulous at first, and then teasing. "You'd swallow my load before you'd take it on the face?" 

"Yeah," Matt sneered, " 'course. Seems degrading." 

"You say so, now, but you're a kinky fuck, too. You'll change that tune." With a last, glistening smile from above, Dom pushed back, and immediately ran a hand through his hair when he was stood up straight. The sweat on his brow made it lay and stick in all sorts of ways, the most satisfying hairdo he knew. 

He lifted his arms over his head and stretched, not even having bothered to pull up his pants by now. Perhaps a lapse of judgment took hold, but he turned away from Matt and stretched again. "You can get cleaned up and we can—" 

Before he could finish the suggestion, which probably led into exactly what they both had in mind, hands were grabbing his thighs from behind, and unexpectedly sharp teeth bit into the flesh of his arse. He cried out and reached back, fumbling for and grabbing Matt's warm head, following up the cry with a whine. 

"Not so fast."


	9. Chapter 9

_Oh god. He just bit me. He just bit me and I just whined – must have sounded like an idiot, but Jesus Christ he's…_

"I'm not your whore, Dominic." Oh, that voice. Was there nothing it couldn't do? Times he'd simply lapsed into amazement, listening to Matt, listening to things he did with his voice that shouldn't have, by all logic, been possible. Especially when he thought no one was listening. Now, though, he was fortunate enough to be hearing all new manner of resonance and force, and _yes_ he loved to hear him say these things, and no Matt most certainly was not his whore. "I'm not your wife, either." 

Matt's hands again, Matt's fingers – long, fine, spindly but for the strength they possessed with every calloused curve – playing up Dom's thighs with the slow, firm touch of a sculptor as he rose behind him. Dom's hand fell out of his hair. Waiting, wanting, breath speeding up again. 

"There is no way all that adrenaline is used up, there is no way you've worked off that surge just with one blow job." There he was doing that whining thing again, as he felt Matt's words more than he actually heard them, hot and stormy and sex electric so near to his skin. Where these whines came from, he couldn't know. He'd never heard them before. Maybe they'd been saved up. Maybe he was a little scared. Maybe those two possibilities combined to explain the fact that he was more nervously turned on than he ever, _ever_ remembered being. 

Well, that and his heart still, indeed, was jackhammering away inside of his chest. Matt moved index and middle finger to his pulse point, just above which Dom's ears began to burn with the effect of the quiet anticipation. "Oh, no. You're not done yet." Matt said simply when he'd had just about enough of the hyperactive throbbing in Dom's veins. 

_He has to know by now my weaknesses. A few of them. The best ones. We talk about it enough. He can just apply the same—_ the thought couldn't even complete itself before Matt jerked his head to the side, fingers laced in sweat-sticky blond hair with a grip that went beyond tight and went more into the realm of "violent". _Oh yes. That especially._

Lips came down over the taut rise of his exposed neck, the kiss to his tattoo no chaste, apologetic thing this time around. And yet, it managed to be romantic, as Matt's other hand curled tickling fingers beneath the hem of his jacket and shirt, touching the bare skin, baring a bit of flesh to the air and letting the balminess cool to icy relief. A chill coursed through him. Matt's teeth scraped over the spot on his neck, the mark that was just being marked again, suckled and nibbled and teased until Dom whimpered, once more. 

Matt pulled the new old Chanel jacket off, easily. Tickled him to quivering with the removal of his undershirt. His cock pressed against Dom's arse, and they both smiled and growled, each in his own way turning a little carnal at the implication. Matt's hips rocked forward; Dom met him with a reciprocal motion. 

But yet…he was just touching him. Dom couldn't stand to keep him from any access, either, and reached up and back, finding Matt's head again, letting his grasp go wontedly to his hair, needing little else to occupy himself. Why occupy himself? Matt was exploring his stomach, his abdomen, fingers floating two and three at a time over the expanse of skin, the hills and valleys of ribcage and hipbone, muscle and flesh. They came up, over his chest, and Matt giggled ever-so-slightly as he swirled over his nipples. "Do anything for you? The nips?" He asked the back of his neck.

"Not especially. But don't stop."

"What if I bit 'em?" 

_Fuck._ "No, stay right where you are." Dom wiggled back against his cock once more, eager but patient. Eager – was eager even the word? Most certainly it couldn't have been. There were few times he'd wanted something so badly that terrified him so deeply. 

But how could it really be terrifying? It was Matt. He would just… _know_ …how to do everything perfectly. 

Positively doubtless fingers were rubbing up and over the length of his biceps, and Matt was thrusting just a little bit up against him, kissing the skin and the longer hair at once against the back of his neck, murmuring before he would ever outright declare such a thing: "You always were such a slut." 

"I never denied it." Dom breathed (though it shocked him that he was able to do so) at the tone of those words. So loving, so tender, and yet so arousing… "I—" He stopped himself speaking, and Matt's fingers and hips stopped moving. He felt him smile delightedly on the nape of his neck, and angle his forehead against the back of his head.

"No, go on." 

_How can I fucking resist it when he says it like that, all airy and careless and fuckable? His mouth is actually fuckable and now I know for sure. Damn he looked so good with a cock in his mouth where the Hell are my thoughts going? Focus, Dominic, focus._

Dom lifted his head and the visions came rolling back in like a morning haze on the coastline. "I had a dream that morning, before you brought me breakfast. I dreamt you had me tied up. Out here. Right out here on the flight deck, and you were—" he cut himself off, putting a lilt on the last word and hoping it would just be taken for what it meant.

"Oh, stop being such a man and just say it already." Somehow Matt's hands had stolen up and around his front in what he at first believed to be an embrace. It wasn't. Slender fingers wrapped lovingly around his throat and, between the twin press of thumbs, he felt light-headed from the sudden, overwhelming sensation – a tangible chill of pleasure that ran up his whole body, bottom to top – that Matt knew exactly how to please him. 

And there was still the cock pressed between his cheeks, hard as hell and feeling too good to be true. 

_He's got a fantastic cock. My god. Not very straight now, am I?_

_Matt's right. The Doctor's right. It never mattered. There isn't really such a thing, anyway. Labels are just categories, they aren't definitions._

_Now I sound alien. I like it._

He smiled and began to grind back against Matt more forcefully (yielding no less than a rumbling, very gratified moan), letting the words worm their way out, sometimes forcing them when they didn't want to go or found it hard to make it audibly past the gentle choke hold. "You were fucking me, you were driving me mad. I was sick, sure, but it was the hottest dream I've ever had. I didn't tell you a thing when you wandered into the room." 

"Had those dreams before, then?"

Suddenly, intrigue. Let's turn the tables. "Have you?" 

Matt squeezed a little harder, pressed up a little harder, and Dom moaned a little more sharply. "I asked first." 

"Well, they never involved a _spaceship…_ " Dom sighed as the grip on his throat softened. 

"But you had them." His throat was released. "Dreams." Matt's hands went back to Dom's shoulders. "Of me." He paused, drumming his fingers across his upper back. "Fucking you." 

"Matthew," why did he feel the need to get saucy, to get defiant? Was it a natural reaction, ingrained, to bite back at Matt's 'a-ha I caught you' tone with a petulant barb? Whatever the case, it might just add fuel to the fire. And this was already one hell of a fire, "I've watched you plow so many girls that it was almost bound to happen." 

"Let's make it happen, then." 

And he didn't respond. He was terrified and he didn't know why, but at the same time he was already getting hard again, knowing, wanting it, craving it, needing it, wondering if Matt was going to ask if he'd done this before, wondering if Matt really cared. Knowing he cared, but that he had a strange way of showing it and he probably just didn't want to be—

_Yes he would be. He would be jealous if I told him that yes, I have-_

_Yes. I have._

It had only been twice, the same bloke, the same weekend. Remembering his name now would be an impossible chore, but Dom remembered that he bore an eerie resemblance to Matt, though not nearly as skinny, not nearly as strange, and much more socially slick, infinitely cooler by traditional means. He smoked and he drank Japanese beer, shared a flat with a girl who had tattoos of wildflowers and ivy all up and down the right side of her body. It had been nearly seven years past.

It was a blur now, really, and all he could offer from the experience now was just the declaration, which he'd actually never been able to give: _Yes, I've been bummed and I do believe I liked it._

_But I want this and I know I want it and I've been wanting it even when I said I didn't and oh fuck he's blowing on my ear, he's blowing on my fucking ear._

Dom nearly buckled under the gorgeous, titillating feeling, Matt's cool stream of breath tight and focused on the back of one ear, chills running relentlessly now as he gasped, dropped his hands, reached back around and grabbed Matt's thin waist, pulled him hard into his body. Matt actually laughed, levity his strong suit as usual, but quicker than Dom could swallow in recovery from the painfully tender assault on his ear, he was being addressed against with a that low, animal voice. Not his whore. Not his wife, either. 

"Let's make it happen, you get on your knees this time." 

"Make me." Dom lost the words in the air and he wondered if they sounded more pleading than they did defiant. 

Whatever tone they wore best, they worked. "My dick can't get any harder, stop trying." Matt was cool in his warning – which _was_ , actually, a warning – as he took a few moments to curl some hair into his hand, to give himself the most solid grip possible before pushing down on Dom's head, returning the favor of earlier, but with a much firmer hand. 

It was how he operated. This was his element. Having him on his knees had been an experience, to say the least, but Matt wanted control. He wanted everything about whomever he was with and he wanted to call every shot. Sometimes that was a subtle thing. Sometimes people didn't put up such a fuss. Most of the time it wasn't even in a sexual sense, and that was how Dom already knew how to handle him, was already somehow conscious of how this was going to go. 

Their dynamic had always been one of power. 

It would be an interesting marriage-bed to play in, certainly. Dom closed his eyes and smiled gently as he sank down, far less graceful than Matt had been, knees fairly clunking when he hit the deck. "Ow." 

"I do intend to make you say that again." A firm push between his shoulders, and forced happily to his hands and knees he found his mind wandering, though not for long. Matt yanked him up again and said into his ear: "I mean that in the best way possible." 

He paused. What was he waiting for? The vital yearning between them made the moment a still life, and though Dom nodded he didn't say anything. Finally Matt asked: "Do you want me to fuck you like this, then?" 

"Fuck's sake, yes!" Dom choked on the words, whining at not only the beautiful, unforgettable question he'd just heard, but also at the fact that Matt had asked at all. A nascient understanding had been growing between them since they'd been alone on this ship together (two days? Three days? Four? Hours were merging so quickly and easily, and again Dom felt like he was going to pass out), and now it was a full-fledged thing. 

Desire, requirement. "Fuck me." He snarled, and the tone must have taken Matt by surprise. 

"Whatever you say in that voice, Princess, looking like this," his hand connected with Dom's rump and the smack reverberated as the flesh thrummed with a momentary sting, "for as long as you'll have me." 

_We'll work off the adrenaline rush before he's even inside of me, at this point._

_Matt. Inside of me. Make this happen faster._

_On that thought…_

"Do you even have a condom?" He had no idea if there was a repository of supplies on the flight deck of the TARDIS, and if there were it would be enough to make him wonder. 

Matt simply paused in his movement, and ran his fingers up Dom's spine as he came around to meet him. Somewhere along the line he'd doffed the white pants and his sneakers, and Dom's eyes were too full of his slightly awkward, but very naked, physique to hear the storied tone of amusement in the first "no" that he gave. He did, however, hear the "no." 

Dom's brow tightened with concern. "Look, I already got bit by a killer space bug, I don't want to catch sonic herpes from you or anything." 

"Dominic…" Matt sighed and became the Doctor again, drawing with one breath on experience and wisdom that he had never been allowed to show before, and it changed him, physically, right in front of Dom's eyes. His voice was soft, understanding despite the deep, patronizing note, "trust me on this one. Not going to happen. Not you and me." 

He looked at Matt. The Doctor looked at him. The skepticism was thick enough to choke on. 

"Come on," becoming Matt again, he nudged him with his voice, "what would I have to gain from fucking with you on that one?" 

"Dropping me off on an alien planet and off to the next thrill." 

This caused him visible insult, but his expression suggested that he was fighting with the best way to explain himself. He knelt down to address him more closely. "You're not some _conquest_ , Dom." His hands wandered in Dom's hair, his face unflappable when he was passed even the most judgmental look his friend could muster, "just think about it. I already promised you, anyway. Well, okay, I didn't get to finish, but I almost did. I promise I won't do that. I won't just fly off and never see you again. Whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, we're _already_ connected for life." His eyes flashed away, and then they were back, urging Dom to believe him. "There's a lot of…conditions…of this marriage that test your limited knowledge of reality, I know. But trust me." 

_I trust him. I trust him and I want to feel him and I know it's probably showing how gullible I am but we're in space and I was shot at and he saved me and I was created in a chem lab by a bunch of scientists anyway…_

"I trust you."

Matt didn't just smile, he pulled Dom into the smile, physically shared it with him as he beamed with relief and passion, shared the warmth of it, the silly happiness of it. All with one enveloping kiss. "That's the sexiest thing you've said yet." He pulled away, and, rising up with inhuman grace onto his feet once more, he said lowly: "Get me wet, Dominic."

_Jesus._

Dom stared up at him, mouth slightly open. Matt laughed quickly. "I've always sort of wanted to say that. Especially lately. You're looking fit as fuck, and now I can tell you." 

_JESUS._

"Suffice it to say, I've had some dreams, too." 

Dom's breath became hard to control as he balanced onto his knees closer to Matt. He was lost for a few moments in the sight of his cock, the drum-tight hardness in shades of pink and red, purple and blue where the veins made it gorgeous. 

He never meant to fixate, but it was impossible not to. Matt had always been incredibly confident, sexually, and no wonder. 

"Any questions?" 

"No, none. Thanks." Dom answered immediately, and glanced up, holding on to Matt, wondering. Wondering how it was going to be, how it was going to feel at first, how it would feel after a minute, how hard he would fuck him, how fast, how long, how it would feel when he came…

A heavy lick acquainted him with the taste, and once he had that there was little to stop him. Wondering turned to wanting, and all Matt had asked, after all, was for Dom to get him wet. With his hands, his tongue, his spit, brazen and without reservation until Matt was more than prepared – once again Dom found it hard to look away. 

The silence between them was alarmingly easy; the silence with which Matt received Dom's frantic, hungry ministrations, fingers running through his hair with no particular rhythm, not a word or a moan or an indication of any kind. Finally, as Dom looked up and kissed the bright pink head of Matt's cock one more time, Matt offered an encouraging _"Fuck."_ As if he'd just woken up, as if his expectations had been far from reality and he was recalibrating, re-evaluating everything he knew and wanted from Dom. "I have to get inside of you." 

Dom just nodded, and fell forward onto his hands. Matt's scent lingered and he was still tasting him, swallowing thickly even by the time he felt the heat of the body behind him, felt a warm, slick finger press against him and inside of him without any pretense or hesitation. Careful, yes. Considerate, yes. But there were no questions, no chances for second thoughts. Dom pushed back against Matt's hand as he went deeper, spit on him and added two more fingers, forcing moans, forcing a "fuck, mate" as Dom looked back over his shoulder, bit his bottom lip.

"Don't you have any," he paused, catching his breath, groaning low as Matt's fingers drove into him, "you know…" 

"I swear to god if you say 'space lube' I'm putting my fist up your arse and it won't be pleasant." But his next words were less severe. "This is more interesting. More organic."

Admittedly, yes. The fingers inside of him curled and Dom rolled his shoulders in response, playing with a word but winding up with another cracked moan. 

And then, he was empty, he was sweating, he was keyed up to the point that only the basest things mattered. There was a moment of fear, followed by a moment of elation. Matt pushed into him, into him, into him…

Then, a sharp noise came from Dom's throat, actually surprised at the moment of pain. It was replaced quickly enough by the overwhelming warmth, the obscene feeling of being so full of Matt, just him, all him. A hand clenched on his hips when he made that noise, and he let his head fall down, limp with relief, the moment of penetration chased by a husky whisper: "You like that noise?" 

He knew Matt was carefully considering his response, even though they both knew exactly what was on their minds. "Are you all right?" 

"You don't give a damn, because you know I am." 

"Do it again." Matt was moving slowly, and with each shallow, deliberate stroke Dom felt his breath catch and release, catch and release, and even if he wanted to he couldn't make a sound, couldn't form a word. He braced himself lower as the rhythm became deeper, as Matt grabbed him by the hips with both hands and began to guide him. 

He didn't need a fucking instruction manual, but there was no arguing with the feeling of being handled like that, a thoughtful touch of control, a forceful element of regulation. He jerked his head back up and when a sound ripped from his throat it was loud, it was unexpected, and it was because Matt hit him deeper than he'd ever thought possible, so deep that he felt it in every muscle, in his bones, a rhythm of sex inside of his body, throbbing, so unreal, so good. 

It was almost uncomfortable, holding himself up, as even the usual strength of his arms began to buckle, forcing him onto his elbows. When he did, he heard Matt give a sigh that was something out of anyone's fantasy – straight or gay or dead and buried – and then Matt was bending over him enough to reach out, to pull his head up by the hair, to ask: "Faster? More?" 

Dom's mouth opened as what came out wasn't yes or no, it was just a cry, a half-whimper colored with pleasure as Matt's hips rolled swiftly and easily, a rhythm struck and maintained, unbelievable. He nodded furiously against the fist holding his head up.

Suddenly he was pulled backward, down as Matt fell back onto his knees, holding Dom in his lap, catching him at the moment of weakness with enough power to shift him entirely into the new position, to hold him against his chest as their legs folded together and he didn't slip even once in their coupling.

_Agile little fucker._

The new arrangement made it easy for Matt to wind their fingers together, to concentrate his lips and teeth (especially his teeth) on Dom's neck and shoulders, to scrape his fingernails here and there. He whispered into Dom's ear, not even a murmur or a low rumble of his voice, but a real and true whisper that attempted to hide beneath the sound of their fucking and exist only as a secret between them as Dom's ear filled with the sound: "Touch yourself." 

Already on the upstroke when he heard this, Dom slammed his hips back down into Matt's lap with a desperate whine. Eager, again, ceased to cover it. Impatient was too fancy a word. Matt reduced him to nothing but a raw nerve and his hand flew immediately for his own cock, breath and stroke and rhythm of his hips all furious and brisk and _this is going to be over before I can even understand what's—_

"OH FUCK _MATTHEW!_ " 

He heard Matt chuckle in response, but it was the dark sort of chuckle best left to the bedroom, the sort that cut through the persistent explosion of pleasure assaulting him from within. 

"Got you." Was all he said, as if he had snared some animal in a trap (really, how far off was that, though?) and he held Dom very carefully at the same angle, speeding up. By the time Dom couldn't hold it in, by the time he realized how much torture was in so much pleasure, he actually let out a scream.

"Not bad, is it?"

Dom shook his head, a sob between pain and elation accompanying it. He squeezed his cock and stroked as fast as he could, found himself unable to maintain a pace as Matt rocked him in his lap from beneath and behind, strong and demanding, so deep inside that Dom knew he would have to have him again. And again. And again. Only Matt could fuck him like this, he told himself, only Matt could get that deep and remember that spot. Fuck. _Oh, fuck._

"Feeling better, aren't you?" 

Dom shook his head. Yes. But no. But yes.

Matt laughed. "No?" The move had only made him piston more quickly, breath gusting short and hot against his shoulder, head resting there despite their bodies in motion. "Too much?" 

"Come." Dom managed to command him, voice ragged. 

"Of course. You too?" 

Another nod. The slick fire of skin on skin, slapping, sweat, teeth sinking into his shoulder again, lips sucking hard, and the fucking, god the fucking. Matt was winding up for the grand finale now, cock – _beautiful, rock-hard, thick, slick, gorgeous, mine_ – slamming in and pulling out with less strict accuracy than before. Moaning into Dom's skin, noises muffled by a shoulder and then his neck. 

It was all Dom could do to keep his hand from shaking when he felt Matt's join him, just wrapping around his fingers around his cock. That was all he needed. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Yes." Every word was a plea, a bargain for one more breath of ecstasy but for release as well. 

"You know what I want." Matt said, and Dom flashed on the first thought that came to mind. 

_I want the peace and joy in your mind._

He smiled, a grin pinched by a grimace, as he came, as Matt keened a sharp note against the skin of his neck, and a warmth filled him from every angle, chills and shocks of orgasm combining with the intensity of their united 

_Bliss._

Seconds followed long, slow moments of recovery. Slumping shoulders, rolling bodies. Wetness on every inch of skin, hands still entwined and covered in come, sweat between them, unbearable but unbelievable heat between them. Minutes followed low-lying laughter, disengagement, Dom rolled off and onto his back and pulled Matt down on top of him, kissed him, gave the finger to the world and ceased to give a damn at the same time. It was nothing and yet it was everything. Minutes got longer, they said a hundred words with their eyes, with looks passed and questions raised and answered with expression alone, because they were too knackered to even consider speaking. 

Fuck words, anyway. What needed to be said was already obvious. Words didn't exist for what just happened. That was true of so many things, and that's why music existed, why colors existed, why some things were better left damned well unsaid. People didn't express enough, anyway, Dom always thought. Too many people made it all about compartmentalizing, sorting, giving voice to things that were meant to just _be._

He let out another, singular laugh. His abs would be sore when he woke up. It was too hot to be tangled up together after only a short while. 

_I've passed out here before. I could do it again._

Something beeped. He ignored it. Matt looked over at him and their eyes locked, heads on the hard metal of the floor, not particularly expressing anything this time. Just looking. Then smiling. Then something beeped again. 

Matt was silent, Dom was silent, until it kept beeping. He flashed his eyes backwards toward the core, toward the origin of the beeping. Dom could swear he heard something else, too, but it was probably his imagination. Like footsteps. That had to be his imagination. It was just the beeping, the echoes playing tricks on him. 

"What's that?" Dom finally croaked. 

"Fucking incoming transmission." Matt dragged a palm over his face. Luckily it was the relatively clean one. "Unfortunately I don't have an answering machine." 

"I thought that wouldn't be annoying, but now I'm starting to come back down and that is really fucking annoying." 

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. 

Matt rolled over, looked around, sat up and leaned over his knees. "Where is my shirt?" 

"Up by the door." 

Matt sighed and grabbed for his pants, which were closer by a considerable distance. He kicked his legs into them and seemed quite jaunty despite the interrupting message. Pride surged in Dom to see him in such a humor. He'd seen and known Matt's "just got laid" swagger for years and years, but there was something a little more formidable in the bearing he saw, now. Maybe it came with the secret identity. But he wanted to, and was going to, take his share of credit and attribute it to their long-awaited consummation. 

"I'll hopefully be right back. Or you can get up and go to bed, I don't care." 

_How romantic._ "That's thoughtful." 

Already at the core, Matt was speaking at something. "Yes, go on with it." He paused. "What the. This is text only, what is this, the dark ages? Actually, people speak too ill of the dark ages. They were really quite bright – people were so _happy_ before industry!" When Dom was turned around, on his knees, watching, Matt was the Doctor was reading from a small screen. " _Is…the…Dau…Dauphin?….Is the Dauphin with you?_ What is this rubbish. _Is the Dauphin with you?_ It's just blinking at me. I never get text transmissions, this is highly suspect." 

"Wrong number?" 

"Unlikely, it's a coordinate-guided transmission. Whoever sent this knows exactly where we are in time and space. That's a complicated set of coordinates, especially for someone who can't use a speaker-box." The Doctor made a little 'tsch' sound and Dom shook his head, attempted to smooth out his hair, and looked around for his own pants. They'd come off nearby, along with his shirt and jacket, and as he crawled to get to them he replayed a few moments from their encounter in his mind. 

Dressed all but for his jacket, albeit a little hastily, he was still lost in thought when the Doctor snapped at the air and suddenly gave a cry that jolted him out of his reverie. "The _Dauphin!_ Oh no, that's impossible. No one – no one even talks about the Dauphin, not anymore! This is a proper joker, here." 

"What's the Dauphin?" Dom asked bleary but unconcerned, slowly getting to his feet, testing his legs, "that's like…a young heir, isn't it? Can I be called that, now? I like it better than Princess."

The Doctor was typing frantically, twisting knobs and pushing buttons again. He smirked over at Dom. "Nothing suits you more than Princess. I say you're a Princess, Princess. Anyway, no. The Dauphin is actually relevant to everything you are." 

"Not that I'm especially coherent, right now, but go ahead. I'll listen." He stopped next to the dividing rise between the middle level and the elevated platform where the core was situated, leaning onto the rail, watching the Doctor work, deep in concentration and adorably shirtless. 

"The Dauphin. Yes, I know about this. Think Grand Duchess Anastasia but even less believable. Legend has it that the Second Throne of the Dolexari Imperial Court - that is the, right-hand, the next in line for power - had a child of their own, an heir who would be in line to assume power if you, god forbid, never showed up. The child disappeared in infancy. Some claim she was assassinated. Some claim she was a _he_ \-- funny story, I know, who'd ever think _that?_ – and that this angered the Second Throne so badly that they had the child's identity hidden. Possibly had the child killed. The rumors are different everywhere. Used to be, even a decade ago, I'd come to find gossip after gossip chasing the trail of the Dauphin. But it died off. The trail went cold, I suppose. There is no Dauphin, everyone figured. I figured it, too. So who," he banged a key, "is this?" 

Dom watched from his spot as the screen in front of the Doctor began to scroll a new message: 

WE HAVE COORDINATES SAYING THE DAUPHIN IS THERE. PLEASE CONFIRM AND IDENTIFY YOUR VESSEL AND WE WILL TAKE MATTERS FROM HERE.

"I'm not fucking confirming anything! Who is this, even?" It was like watching Matt arguing with a computer, which he had frequently done. 

HOLD ON.

"You're damned right, hold on." 

The speaker crackled to life and the Doctor jumped up from where he had been half-sitting. He stepped back a bit, tilting his head, holding up his palms. Obviously but not dreadfully shaken that whomever it was had managed to open an audio channel. 

"Doctor?" It was an American accent, male, but thanks to the quality of the audio that was all Dom could ascertain. 

"Oh," the Doctor's entire body sagged and his jaw dropped in what was not quite dread, but definitely not happiness either, "oh fuck me, no." 

"Doctor!" The voice on the other end was bright, laughing, overjoyed. 

He was sure to meet Dom's eyes as he said: "Hello, Jack."


	10. Chapter 10

And then, just then, just as the Doctor said "Hello, Jack" and became incredibly worried about how he was going to explain away everything that was coming to bear far too quickly, the transmission cut out. It cut out with the stereotypical buzz and crackle, the way transmissions tend to when one is either Very Concerned with the topic at hand or heading through a series of stormy nebulae. And the Doctor leapt at the little box, banging on it with his palms first and his fists second, swearing and making little scoffing sounds as if indignation were as effective a tool as any. 

"Why don't you sonic it?" Dom asked, curling up his lip at the electronic menace that had been impolite enough to interrupt their fun and then rude enough to part ways without so much as a goodbye. 

The Doctor looked over slowly, holding the big brushed-silver speaker box between his hands. He sighed. No use telling Dominic he'd already thought of something, anything, because Dominic was a Princess and Princesses didn't like – oh, what did it matter, here and now, if he didn't like it? They'd always gone toe-to-toe on any other such issue. "That would have been my first inclination, yes, but this thing's been sonic'd so many times, it's…it's…" he paused. 

He noticed the smirk wanting, threatening, to break out on Dom's all-too-smug face, and wasn't about to give him the chance to be crass, much less _cleverer than he_. "You're thinking of some sexual metaphor or another, I know you are. And yes, it's probably applicable, but don't go comparing my ship to some used-up tart, thank you. She's rather beloved." 

"Yeah, I'd noticed that." It was Dom's turn to sigh, as he turned on the railing and leaned against it, stretching out his worn-out back, facing away from the Doctor. The pitch of the sigh that indicated jealousy was lost on the Doctor, however, as he scrambled around to Communication Port This and Visual Display That, trying to regain the signal. At last he paused in front of an unimpressive LED read-out and mumbled to himself while typing and twisting and hitting. 

Finally: "Aha! 13 of June, 2007. Sounds about right." 

"Who's Jack, anyway?" So there were the magic words. The Doctor cleared his throat, and thought of how to answer that question, and when nothing suitable for Avoiding Suspicion came to mind, he studied his very recent lover (his very recent, very _enjoyable_ lover) and made a thinking face. 

"Well, how would you want someone to answer that question for you: Who is Dominic Howard?" 

"Someone who doesn't know me?" Dom had thrown an arm behind his back, and though he was obviously stretching he looked positively like a supermodel with recently-sexed hair (which was, of course, the trend) when he tossed his head and looked back over his shoulder: "Dominic Howard, drummer for a band called Muse." 

"Jack Harkness, head of an organizational branch called Torchwood Three." 

A pause. Dom let his arm flop down and suggested with his expression: all right, we'll play this game. 

"Doesn't really help, does it? Now what does Jack _do_ , that's the chief thing to concern ourselves with, here. Torchwood, though once a pretty nasty thing in even the most abstract sense, seems to be, for all the checking in I clandestinely did while in my hide-in-plain-sight disguise, seems to be doing quite well, protecting the South of Wales and its immediately neighboring regions from alien baddies who usually for some reason want to have sex with someone." 

"Time travelers?" 

_Hardly!_ the Doctor wanted to scoff, but bit his tongue and cleared his throat again. A bleeping, blooping thing was bleeping and blooping and he moved around to switch it off, while at the same time he quickly, deftly, and with fingers that still bore the traces of their recent coupling, set them on a course that, for the time being, he felt no need to divulge to Dominic. "Not entirely. Jack - _Captain_ Harkness – is a Time Agent, or _was_ a Time Agent, or…wasn't even really that when you get into it, but, long story slightly less long, Torchwood Three has some very interesting and dangerous things going for it that might make you "oooh" and "aaah" until you realize what they're messing with, then the "oooohs" and "aaahs" turn more to "eeees" and "nnnns" – anyway. They _can_ \- _he_ can, bounce around in time – which is obvious since he managed somehow to contact me. But primarily Jack concerns himself with threats on Earth - in Wales, very specifically for some reason, maybe because he doesn't like long trips – and waiting for _me_." 

"Why? What happened with you?" Dom's face grew dark and the Doctor feared the worst, tilting his chin up in defensive stance as he passed the threshold to the middle level and went about retrieving his shirt and braces from the entryway, "he hasn't been following the band all this time, and I never knew, has he?" 

"No!" Again, the Doctor wanted to practically spit the words, formerly unaware of just how much there was to explain to Dominic, "no, he…we…exist on different timelines. He's met me before, which was technically later but we won't get into that – and we had…you see the _thing_ you have to understand about Jack is that he doesn't give up on things very easily, he forms these attachments," the Doctor wiggled his fingers and made a face as if, though he could be accused guilty of the same thing, commitment was something as vile to him as cooties to a schoolboy, "no matter how insignificant the actual thing he's attached to." 

Though about to add that he was, in no way, to be considered insignificant, he was interrupted by Dom, and let his braces snap right into place on his shoulders as he was. "Oh, _god_ , you fucked him!" 

_"I did not!"_ Matt's voice was stern, like a Victorian woman of means being accused of something quite unseemly. He shot Dom a Take it Back look and scowled. "Which isn't to say that there was lack of trying, on Jack's part." 

"Oh, great, another ex then, only this one has the added bonus of never having gotten to hit it."

"Listen, Dom, Jack Harkness has no shortage of opportunity and experience, _trust_ me. I simply wasn't interested." Someday, sometime, he would explain why. Not now. Possibly not ever. "But to get back to the _real_ issue that needs explaining – which is not, believe it or don't you, where I stick my cock – Jack sent us that message from June 2007, which means he's living his present in _our_ present, and is communicating thusly from it. That made no sense." He was beleaguered for a way of making it simpler for Dom, who, though not entirely simple-minded and in fact rather intelligent, had a knack for wanting to completely understand whatever bothered him. 

Sighing, crossing his arms, making a big deal out of silently agreeing to ignore the much more interesting subject of where Matt's cock had been, Dom nodded, listening for a better explanation to present itself. 

When Matt spoke next, it was very rapidly and very slurred and very much while he was hopping into his shoes and gesticulating as expressively as he knew how. "My timeline – our timeline – here," one hand, chopping the air, "Jack's timeline, here," the other hand, next to it, "he could keep on living a few months in our future and never know, we could just have been running parallel this entire time because, even though he _knows_ me, I don't think he ever quite put the pieces together. Never figured out I – Matt Bellamy, that is, god it sounds pretentious saying my name out loud like I'm such a fucking star – am the Doctor. He knew me in a different time, in a different body. If that makes you feel any better," a quick scan, "no, it doesn't, I see, moving on. Anyway, Jack in 2007. Us in 2006. I go with you on a journey to the Pleaidean Star Cluster, Jack picks up a certain strange signal from our vessel, tracks it down with the Limited Though Sometimes Incredibly Effective Equipment they have there at Torchwood Three, and sends us that blasted message. Realizes it's the TARDIS, realizes it's _me_ …and…well." 

He could see that Dom was still stuck on the concept of parallel but non-intersecting timelines, and chopped his hands again in the air. "It's like the light cycles in that movie Tron, Dom!" 

"Twon?" 

" _TRON._ You love that movie, don't be shitty. So Jack, as Jack, in 2006, didn't know that we're…who we are…in 2006, that is until now when I believe our timelines might finally converge." Eyes wide, he seemed terrified but all the same captivated by the thought, staring at the screen and the speaker box as if a transmission would magically appear again. A hand covered half his face, rubbing over his mouth, nose, brow, but never his big, blue, unblinking eyes. 

"So then, if I'm to gather that you knew Jack…before…" 

"Technically after. Long after…a lot of things." He dodged the question well but it left Dom unimpressed. Also it seemed to leave him looking rather uneasy, a miniscule bit of worry in the way his bottom lip pouted out to hear this. The Doctor tripped over his words (and nearly over his own feet, getting back to Dom and grabbing him by the shoulders) to explain: "no, no, no, Dom, that's not how it works! You can't…I mean," he tossed his head back and looked up at the ceiling of the TARDIS for guidance, and, finding none, settled for smoothing his hair back (which also did little good, though he wore it well at its present length), "Christ I have to go through this with everyone, okay. How do I explain it, _time doesn't work that way!_ " And so he went through his speech about time travel and the past being rewritten and smudged out and penciled over and traces remaining here and there, and when it seemed like Dom was finally satisfied by the explanation, he had moved in closely enough that he was able to see the wear and tear all the talking through had done. 

The Doctor's hands squeezed Dom's shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle protectively, and his teeth came out to scrape his bottom lip. Though he certainly could have rattled off a thousand words a minute, as he felt he had been doing up to that point anyway, nothing seemed well enough to ease the tension and the lack of clarity. Brow knitting, he knew that Dom would just have to experience it, see it and know it for himself. It would happen. There was no way to avoid that. "Dom, I'm not going to leave you. Again. I'll say it again and again, you're the only real thing I have." Trying to be objective, careful not to sound too pathetic or overly saccharine, though perhaps that's what Dom needed. 

"You lived how many years before Teignmouth, before meeting me, before the band and before this?" 

Matt's voice dropped after he swallowed back a pearl of insecurity. "About 900 years, to round it off." 

"Yeah," pragmatic Dom, insular Dom who didn't need Anyone much less Someone, beautiful Dom and suddenly caustic Dom, "who was real for you, then? The ship?"

The Doctor was Matt, and sighed through his nose roughly. "You're not letting me be truthful, here." He was close, close enough that he leaned his forehead on Dom's shoulder, a silent plea to be heard for what he was meaning instead of what he was saying. He fisted the fabric of Dom's shirt in his hands and remembered the feeling of the skin that had so recently been slick with sweat beneath it. "Dom." 

"Because you're a romantic, and romantics don't tend to be truthful, they just tend to be romantic," he scoffed, laughing humorlessly and shaking Matt's forehead on his shoulder when he did, "and you've had a shit load of time to practice it, which makes sense when I look back at all the times I wondered how you could be so much _more_ than other people – more angry, more happy, more frantic, more brilliant – it was all there, you'd honed it, and you just grew up with it inside, didn't you?"

"I'm not deceiving you." The words sounded so formal, even falling from his lips, which he dragged over to Dom's long neck (it still smelled faintly like sex, like the pungent sweat of letting go), but what else could he say? 

Dom was silent, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed and still kept his arms crossed between them. After a few moments, after Matt's lips opened blindly on one of his nerve-constricted lines of tendon and muscle and tasted the salty hot skin there, Dom sighed and opened up to him. He unfurled his arms and linked them lazily around the slim figure practically prostrate, emotionally, before him. Matt's chest rose and fell on Dom's with a sigh of relief and a hardened kind of happiness. 

"Awkward." 

Matt looked at Dom, and narrowed his eyes, just as Dom looked at Matt and did the same. It had been neither of their voices that said the word, that cut through the open air of the flight deck with a politely pointed, Familiar But Unexpected throat clearing. 

Dom's fingers had wound into the cross of his braces, and they pulled a little (in a pleasant way, of course) as Matt turned around apprehensively. Dom turned with him, toward one of the hallways he didn't yet know. 

The scene that followed is quite impossible to describe unless one is very familiar with the concept of utter and complete panic, of shock followed by too many questions to process. Shouting and finger-pointing, embarrassment and sudden failure of all those things they took for granted like balance and volume control and not wanting to take a Time Out and gather on the sidelines to open the playbook and see where to move from here.

Recovery was quick enough to get on with things, but there was still a feeling of urgency and impossibility that seized and strangled the suddenly cramped quarters. "Chris!" The Doctor (no longer Matt, or was he?) said for the tenth time at least, though this time he _said_ it, much like a reprimanding father (amount of irony not unnoticed) and less with the strident shout (shriek) he'd had before. "No, really, _Chris!?_ " 

"It's me," Chris' shoulders sagged and he tried to look anywhere but at his friends as they both attempted to look perfectly collected and as if they had no idea what he was going to be talking about when he eventually mentioned having come upon them in mid-embrace, "forgive the intrusion. I thought you might be done for the time being." 

Well, then, mid-embrace was the least of their worries. Dom blanched as Chris' eyes landed on him, looked him over, and gave him a nod of manly approval. The Doctor just rolled his eyes and stood akimbo, think think thinking over the night he'd stolen Dom away into the TARDIS and jetted out into space and time. "Wait, now, Chris, did you _follow_ me?" His voice reached a strange inquisitive octave on that one word, "follow".

"Course I did. Had to." Chris took no time in making himself at home, seating himself on the risers between middle and upper levels, holding in his hands a slim black plastic thing that the Doctor didn't have time for asking about just yet. "Considering the date and the time, I had to." 

"All right, mate, explain." The Doctor was in no mood for games. 

Chris held up a pointing finger, first, and alternated between (the man he knew as) Matt and Dom. "So you two are _actually_ fucking, now, then? Because as soon as we get back I have about five bets to collect on."

Dom turned around, muttering an "oh for fuck's sake" in abject humiliation, which made Chris titter with the most free-spirited sort of laughter. Obviously, he'd made himself at home long ago. And this thought hit the Doctor and made him raise an eyebrow. "Cut that out, there are Important Things happening." 

The way the Doctor spoke made Chris realize, as Dom had realized before him, that he was not talking to Matt anymore, but rather to the tempered steel version of Matt. The Doctor was the sword to Matt's hammer, with no "tool" jokes needing to be made. 

As the sword, of course, he was very, very sharp. "It's you, isn't it. You're the Dauphin." Under his breath, he murmured it like he didn't want to believe it, like everything suddenly needed to be torn down and rebuilt with this information and by even _speaking_ that information he was setting the demolition process in motion. 

Dom's interest was piqued but he kept his distance, leaning on a rail a yard or two away. Close enough to hear, close enough to react, close enough to see Chris hold out the slim black plastic thing (it was about the size of a legal pad, though maybe not as thick) which the Doctor regarded with a sneer. "It's all right here, I've been taking my time these last few weeks reading over it. By the way, lovely place you've got here. A guy could get lost in this ship. I found the billiards room, though. Kept myself busy enough." 

"Chris," the Doctor said, looking but not really looking at the black plastic thing, "how did you get this?" A long finger pointed down, directly down, the very hard and very Pointy sort of down, on top of the thing.

"Post. Month or so ago. I thought it was some advance product test, or something, free shit from Apple." The Doctor recognized it as an iPad, but of course no one else in their reunited trio did. He said nothing of where that put it, on the great Time and Space spectrum. "No return address, really, just said Cardiff. But then I turned it on."

A father who was used to telling stories and acting out details, he flipped it on and held it up for the Doctor. A logo, made of imposing red hexagons forming a vague sort of "T" shape, flashed on the screen. The Doctor's very keen sense of conspiracy was making his nose actually tickle, and so he sniffed and wiggled it around a bit. With a deep breath, he picked it up carefully out of Chris' hands and beckoned Dom over. 

"You need to see this, probably." 

"Yes. You do." Chris looked at Dom importantly and Dom strode to join them, looking over the Doctor's shoulder as the screen flashed out the text:

YOU ARE IN DANGER.  
YOUR FRIENDS ARE IN DANGER.   
THERE IS NOT MUCH TIME.  
INSIDE IS EVERYTHING YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW.  
DO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOUR FAMILY HERE ON EARTH.   
THEY WILL BE SAFE. THEY WILL NEVER KNOW YOU WERE GONE.  
IF YOU FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS.  
WORRY ABOUT WHAT IS BEYOND.  
WHAT IS TO COME. 

"Well, shit, that would scare the piss out of anyone, wouldn't it?" Dom regarded the introductory message with a bit of terror.

"Mmm, it would also make anyone keep reading." 

"Thought maybe at this point it was some ARG or a video game, still," Chris explained, as the screen blanked and a flashy menu popped up in its place, "I was going to turn it over to one of my mates, see if they had the time for something like that, but—" 

The Doctor held the iPad in one hand and closed the other over his mouth, eyes going big and unblinking again as he sucked in a breath through his nose. The headers that appeared, available for expansion with just a touch, were enough to make his skin tingle and his senses take a spin into the realm of the frenetic: 

"Dolexaro Royal Family. Pleaidean Ministry of Defense. Queen Dolexaxirah XXIII. HIH Niandih and Descendents – that's what I should check first, isn't it?" The Doctor interrupted Chris, who was used to being interrupted and only nodded, already a little bored by the situation, scanning the room. 

"Who's Her Imperial Highness Niandih?" Dom asked, scratching behind his ear. 

"Your Auntie, though not by blood. Head of the Second Throne of the Dolexari Royal Line," Dom watched the Doctor's fingers fly over the menu and through a few sub-menus, playing over the screen and manipulating blocks of text, pictures, context notes into place as he explained, "which only means that she was chosen by the Electory." 

"So the Electory is something of a…governing body, I take it?" Sharp, but not in the right way this time. 

Chris stood up and spoke before the Doctor could. "Not exactly," he laughed, "for all the rules and regulations and rights of ascension, the Dolexari actually answer to the stars. The Electory is a constellation viewable every five hundred years on the Southern horizon of the Crystal Halls, and children – that is, women - born under the Electory at exactly the prescribed time are considered royal, and enter the line of succession until their bloodline goes extinct." 

"Right," the Doctor interrupted firmly, eyes flying over the page, flipping a finger to go to the next page as quickly as Dom could even focus his eyes on the last, "and, males being so sparse on Dolexaro for obvious reasons, and another requirement of ascension by the Electory being that one must be of pure planetary blood – that is, no skin trade studding – bloodlines go extinct rather often. It seems the original line, that of the original Queen Dolexaxirah I, was the original and is still the longest-lasting," he read a bit, "and that doesn't sit well with the line of Niandih, who would finally rise beyond the Second Throne – or, that is, second longest line of royals – if anyone were to find out. About. _You_." A hard stare at Dom, close over his shoulder, close enough to kiss but it wasn't the time nor the situation. Besides, Chris was in the room.

"Not that I'm a much better candidate, so I was thrown off a proverbial cliff and left to be a legend." Chris looked around bitterly and, it was obvious from his countenance, he didn't find it so hard to believe. The Doctor wondered on this as he continued to peruse the long, long, _very_ long history that led up to the specific birth of the Dauphin, born after the mysterious off-planet non-birth of Princess Dominique XVI…

"So the rumors were true? Cast off into space like proverbial Moses in a proverbial reed basket until—" the Doctor paused and actually let his finger hover over a page for once, allowing Dom to take a closer look, "—you're fucking _kidding_ me, it was _him_?!" 

This time Dom took the opportunity he had to read aloud: "Rescued from a supply ship bound for Terra in the second month of his life by Captain Jack Harkness, the Dauphin was placed in the care of a family in Rotherham, England in February of 1979—" his voice slowed and he kept shooting glances at Chris as he continued, "who, thanks to unauthorized manipulation of time and reality distortion mechanics, were never suspect of the disappearance of their real son." 

Chris looked a bit sheepish at this, a bit sad, and watched the core as its alternating colors flew about with ease and hypnotic energy. "It adds a post-script that the real me is alive and well and working a coffee shop in Long Eaton – and that he really doesn't look that much like me, either. Bit gangly, really."

"Blimey." Dom bit the inside of his lip and didn't quite know what to say. 

"So!" In the moments of explanation that had passed, the Doctor had managed to digest the remainder of the article. "What we have here is a Royal Rivalry in which neither throne has a suitable heir, unless they've changed around the rules. The bold and brave Captain Jack rescued you and put you in my timeline, and I'm almost sure - in fact I'm bloody well _certain_ \- that wasn't an accident." 

"But you said our timelines weren’t—" Dom began.

"Shut up, Dom, I'm thinking." 

That was probably Thinking, with a capital T, judging by the way the Doctor curled his lips in and knitted up the spot between his eyebrows.

"So the Princess," he pointed behind his shoulder, "the Dauphin," pointing again, "and the Doctor. All together. All brought together in intimate friendship and professional camaraderie. In a timeline not entirely concurrent with that of dear, dashing Captain Jack, who is somehow taking all the credit even if he didn't do all the work – which is course not obvious to you," he indicated Chris, "because I haven't given you the Timelines Speech yet, but it would be very obvious to me if I ever came across this do...cu…ment…"

Sensing that the Doctor was having something of an epiphany, staring down at the iPad, Dom backed away and met eyes with Chris, as if they were caught on either side of a bomb ready to explode (it was usually the case, regardless). 

But he was very staid, he was very comfortable and thoughtful in the way he asked, still staring at the screen: "Chris, why did you follow me into the TARDIS that night, why did you say earlier that you "had to", being when it was?" 

"There's a lot in there about me being in danger, you know," Chris said with a profound, slightly insulted twang, "and a lot about Dom being in danger, too." The Doctor was already flying through menus and subheadings he hadn't noticed before, tongue poking out at the tip again as he absorbed the material and listened to Chris at the same time. "And it goes into you, it says basically that my job – and I was given a date, a date that wasn't long in coming when I got this in the post – was to travel with you, to keep myself hidden away as well as I could until…well, there's a nice little space timer on that thing, it let me know, of course it was supposed to be about an hour and a half ago but you were…busy. It felt rude to interrupt, fate of the universe or not." 

Dom and the Doctor exchanged a sidelong, slightly humiliated glance. 

Chris sighed and went on, ignoring the awkwardness as best as he'd come to over the years, which was very. "Says in there that—" 

The Doctor finished for him. Chris was used to being interrupted. "—we're about to set down in Cardiff, 2007, at which point it will all become very, very clear." He finished with a flourish, and would have closed the iPad like a book (for effect, of course) if he could. Dom snatched it from his hands, instead, eager to do some reading up of his own that wasn't impeded by super speed. He was struggling with the mechanics of the iPad's touch screen, making distasteful faces at the way it jumped when he gave it the slightest flick of a finger, while the Doctor explained: "That's just lovely, because I set in that course to Cardiff before you walked in on us. Timelines do seem to be converging." 

A bright grin broke out on his face, he stood akimbo, and threw his head back with a laugh. "Oh, as much as I hate it when Jack takes all the credit, I do love it so much when things start to come together!" He caught Chris' grin, which was not his usual grin, and pointed at him warningly. "Don't you say a _word_ about 'things coming together'. And you'd better share that money you won on us."

"Hey, if I weren't straight, I'm not saying I wouldn't, either." Chris shrugged, snickering regardless. 

The Doctor beamed a bit. "Why thank you, Christopher." 

"I'm talking about Dom, you git, I'm certainly not talking about you."


	11. Chapter 11

A tense and unnatural sort of silence took hold of the room as Dom tried to digest what everyone was talking about, while still trying to sort out exactly what kind of look to give back to the man who'd been introduced to him as Captain Jack Harness. About fifteen minutes ago they'd arrived at torchwood Three through a complicated series of hidden places that Dom hadn't really been paying attention to, and it had taken Captain Jack (though Dom took the "Captain" moniker with a grain of salt, assuming it was just another adopted title and he was no more an Captain than Matt was a Doctor) several of those fifteen minutes just to catch his breath. In fact, the Doctor had greeted him at the door by clapping a palm over Jack's mouth and pointing at him, saying (this Dom could remember very clearly): "Is it the 13th of June, 2007? Nod once for yes and then shake your head to promise me you're not going to go all raging fanboy on me when I take my hand away. Whether for who you already know me to be in the here and now or who I am in not-so-simple reality considering our future history, just don't… _do_ that, don't get all starstruck, it makes you look tacky. Shake your head, but let me know I've got the date right because if I don't we're turning around." 

Jack had given the nod, and then the shake, and the Doctor hesitated, narrowing his eyes and leaning in a little bit: "One nod if you're lying about the fanboy part." 

He nodded. The Doctor removed his hand nevertheless and waited, going through the roster of introductions even though it seemed very obvious that Captain Jack Harkness was in need of no such things. More often than not, pissed fans in pubs conducted themselves with more grace and aplomb, only the very handsome man in the very long black coat was alternating between names, fawning one moment over galactic royalty and the next over rock royalty. Jack and the Doctor, they tried to speak over each other for those initial passing minutes, and struck as he was by the palpable weight of combined ego, Dom decided to remain silent. 

For the time being, he was avoiding eye contact at all costs, glancing every other way though he felt that unshakable stare – Jack's stare – coming back again and again, burning on him. 

Torchwood didn't breathe well, for his liking, and he felt rather anxious to even be in the place, inside a room inside a cave inside a tunnel god-knows-how-many-feet below Cardiff. So he was bobbing his feet up and down, as fidgety as Matt usually was. The Doctor was actually holding himself with surprising calm and reserve, his silence the ultimate retort against Captain Jack Harkness, who wouldn't stop talking but sounded incredibly self-aggrandizing while he did, pronouncing things very firmly and clearly, employing dramatic half-pauses, basically every speech pattern that was the opposite of the Doctor. 

"Well I should have known, really! Everyone assumes you're an alien, anyway!" As Jack said this, Dom finally hazarded a look in his direction, but it was thankfully between stares. No, at that moment Jack was watching the Doctor, looking him up and down in a Very Not Subtle way. A shock of jealousy made Dom's face harden into a very particular expression, and he changed his mind completely, wanting nothing more than for Jack to look over, to see it. It wasn't that people didn't look at Matt that way all the time, women and men and grandmas and schoolgirls, but now things were different. Now Dom felt a claim, and he had the nail marks on his hips to prove it. And with those other women and men and grandmas and schoolgirls, there wasn't the energy of familiarity that was firing between Jack and the Doctor, a familiarity that betrayed Dom, and probably betrayed Chris but on a wholly different level that didn't involve nail marks on hips. Chris sat completely unaffected to Dom's left, politely smiling about the whole thing. "But not you two. I'd have been less shocked to see Oprah walk in here saying she was the Princess of Dolexaro, honestly!" 

"Oprah, nice." Dom couldn't help but cough in response, and finally took the opening to fire a few optical shots at Jack, who seemed to look right past them and just _grin_. And it was _that_ sort of grin, the sort of self-assured, cocky grin that inhabited his entire face and proved to be strangely alluring despite its gut-tugging machismo. No, Dom had been wrong about the whole thing. The Doctor wasn't the James Bond of the universe. He was more thoughtful than that, more complex. Moodier. Cleverer. Sitting across from them, right now, was the _real_ James Bond of the universe. 

"Sorry," Jack held up a hand, still grinning, "it was the first thing that came to mind. Still, Muse. You're…" he couldn't find the words (finally), and seemed to exhaust his fanatic exultations with a sigh as the hand closed and he pulled it back to his chest. "This is incredible." 

"Right, then, we've wasted enough time. I had bet on giving you ten minutes to get over things, and you chewed up about twenty. I have no idea what sort of time crunch we're in, but I'm sure we are in one, somehow or another, and every minute counts." A split-second pause, and the Doctor pointed at Jack, behaving still like he was the owner of an unwieldy, noisy, handsome and overly-flirtatious puppy. For once Dom considered that the tables might be turned. It was how he felt the need to behave most of the time thanks to Matt. "No "Time is Running Out" jokes, please." 

"I wasn't going to say anything!' Jack defended himself staunchly, and then his eyes lit up with a different sort of gleam as he glimpsed up and over Dom's shoulder. Dom followed the line of sight and his nose nearly collided with a cup of tea. 

"Sorry." A much softer, much less bombastic voice was pleasant to hear, and Dom leaned back enough to smile (it was a natural smile that was a natural reaction to the tenor of that voice, almost like a salve for all the grating he'd suffered from the two men otherwise running the show) as Jack lowered his tone to a more conversational one. 

"Ianto! Just in time. Everyone, this is Ianto Jones, also of Torchwood Three. Ianto, you know Muse." 

Ianto looked down at Dom, who was passed a cup of tea and accepted it with a gracious "cheers", and blinked once, not even really looking over Matt and Chris as well before mumbling: "Er, not really, no."

Chris snickered a little, obviously amused, but the Doctor scoffed. Ianto noticed, and looked like he was almost ready to withhold the cup of tea that he was ready to hand him from the small tray he'd brought along. His verbal response, as well, proved to be quite feisty. "Well, I'm _sorry_. Maybe if I wasn't working sixty-hour weeks here…" 

"Ianto's been taking on an extensive workload lately, and I keep _telling_ you I'm going to hire someone else soon! I'm just waiting for the right candidate." 

Matt and Chris had both received their tea, and Ianto came around with a mug to hand Jack, which he did far less gracefully, almost as if the two were in the midst of a spat. _Oh, so he's Miss Moneypenny. Oh._

"So I assume you lot are here on business, then?" There was a catty sort of charm about Ianto's attitude, which seemed at once adorably insecure and painfully confident. Dom felt at least something to be thankful for, because Ianto was the first thing to calm him down since they'd walked in. His feet stopped bobbing to an invisible rhythm of being slowly suffocated, and on top of that the tea was fantastic. 

"Well—" Matt was going to begin, but Jack cut them off. 

"Actually, Ianto, this is the Doctor. And the Princess of Dolexaro, and, just to add to the fun, the Dauphin. _The_ Dauphin." Jack scratched behind his ear and looked up at Ianto, who fixed himself on Jack's smile with a blank stare for a few moments before glancing at Matt, then back, and forming the word very carefully: 

"What?" The tone of his voice indicated a hard and dull sort of shock, nothing much more. 

"I thought you said you didn't know who we—" 

"Well not _personally_ , but of course I know _of_ you, you're playing Wembley Stadium in four bloody days!" 

"Wait," Chris leaned forward at this, setting his cup aside, "we play Wembley?" He looked over at the other two and grinned. "No. Really. We. Play. Wembley Stadium." 

The Doctor showed a flash of Matt, a glimmer of rock 'n' roll pride as they all three shared in passing, silent delight that was hampered very much by the overwhelming tension of current affairs. Dom bit his lip on a grin and watched the Doctor carefully as he furrowed his brow and wondered out loud, not really asking but just bandying about the idea:

"So that means we come back. That means we're going to keep going on this timeline." 

Chris laughed. "Of course we come back, that dossier I got already said as much, that I would be back and no one would ever know. I mean, I never would have gone if I thought I'd have to leave Kelly and the kids, be real now." 

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully at this, stroking under his lip compulsively with one finger.

He wasn't ready to respond, and when Jack didn't interrupt Dom felt comfortable enough to put in a few words. "That means you stay the Doctor, and still stay with us?"

"That's one way time could work out, yes." Matt looked at him, his eyes indicating that he'd been snapped out of the over-thinking reverie by the words. There was also a little bit that said 'stop nagging me about it, Dominic', so Dom just shrugged and went back to his tea. He felt comforted.

"I'll admit, that doesn't sound very much like him." Jack laughed. 

And then he didn't feel comforted anymore, and his lips drew down into a scowl.

Suddenly something dawned on Jack, which made everyone forget whatever else they'd been fretting or wondering over. He pointed at Chris (and Chris did not like to be pointed at, but took it politely). "What did you say about a dossier?" 

The Doctor cleared his throat, produced the electronic file from his jacket, and indicated that Chris go on with the explanation. "Got it by post a few weeks ago." 

Chris went on, telling about what it said, all that it explained, and the Doctor couldn't help but interject occasionally with footnotes and disclaimers regarding the trials they'd faced to get there and the immediate plans for the future. He left out the parts that included shagging, which was probably for the best as it would have just distracted Jack.

Captain Jack flipped through the document carefully, obviously unable to read the full swell of information but taking in enough to understand that it was from the future – the future of all but one in the room. 

At last, the Doctor pointed his teacup at the black sci-fi looking screen and remarked, as if it were the easiest thing: "That's an iPad, by the way, circa 2010."

"Well that puts everything into perspective, doesn't it?" Jack was troubled by something, something which Ianto, who had been reading over his shoulder while sat on the arm of the sleek black couch, noticed as well. 

"Seems it was written by you. Torchwood logo, speaking from the point of view of Torchwood Three, all those first person accounts from the life of…" Ianto looked over at Chris, and looked very contemplatively at him. Without removing his incredulous gaze, he continued, "…someone you've never met before." 

"And won't. Yeah. It makes perfect sense, now, who wrote this!" He brightened, his face going even more handsome somehow in a way that made Dom slightly ill with….something. He wasn't sure what. It wasn't jealousy and it wasn't disgust, it was somewhere in between but it made his face screw up to feel it regardless.

"So it wasn't you?" The Doctor was almost giddy, Dom suddenly realized, with that just-below-the-surface excitement that was so infectious and so lovely. It was like he knew something, but it was something that needed confirmation before he would let the excitement breach.

"Well, this document very cleverly appears to have been written by me, but I can tell you this isn't my style. I'd just get Owen to do it, honestly. Or Tosh. This was written in the not-too-far-off future, by someone who's obviously been working for Torchwood…" he paused and leaned back. Everything clicked into place. The Doctor hated that (Matt hated that), when other people understood things before he did. So Dom saw him simply bite the inside of his cheek, and listen, "…in your timeline. Sent or designated, possibly, by myself. Or Tosh." 

"Or Ianto." Ianto threw in firmly.

It went largely unnoticed. Dom passed him a look that seemed to suggest an _I know how you feel_ vibe, but Jack was rifling through the electronic pages, leaning forward, showing the Doctor the extensive nature of the documentation, and this took all the attention. The familiarity became apparent again, an understanding between the men that was manifesting more strongly now that they were in the process of figuring something out. So theirs was – would be (it was all still so confusing) but had been? – a professional relationship. Dom hoped that was as far as things had gone. When he looked at Ianto again, it was like looking into a mirror. _I must have that same look on my face. Ianto, my friend, I know exactly how you feel._ "I mean, this is an exhaustive body of work, from the research on the Dolexari to the research on…the three of you! Which means…" 

And then it dawned on the Doctor, and he pushed his hands back in his hair, and he grinned at Jack. The grin turned into a laugh, Jack clapped him on the thigh, and they were laughing together, just short of breaking into celebration at the way it was all coming together when Chris cleared his throat.

"Begging everyone's pardon, here, but I can't be the only one who's so confused he can hardly breathe." 

"Thank _god_ someone else said it!" Dom cried, the relief pouring from his heavy tone.

Chuckling, overjoyed, the same as Dom had encountered him in his first waking minutes on the TARDIS, the Doctor seemed to be so _happy_ to be explaining something. "It's simple. It's so simple! Who's known us the longest? Who's always with us – well, most of the time?" 

Dom understood, but then didn't. He and Chris both took in a giant gasp of air, but then their shoulders fell and heads were shaking. As soon as the puzzle piece of Tom Kirk fit into place, it became dislodged by the When and the Why and the How that kept making all of this so damned hard to keep up with. "Explain _slowly_." Dom commanded.

Jack seemed happy to do so. "Ah, time paradoxes that aren't really all that paradoxical, my favorite thing to explain! He's horrible at it," he indicated the Doctor, who rolled his eyes (of course), "but I'm pretty good at speaking like a human being." 

"Which…you _are_ …?" Obviously Chris had grown suspect of all the aliens amongst them as well.

Jack made an oscillating, nervous sound, and launched without confirmation nor denial into his explanation. "Now, I can't be sure of when I made contact with Tom Kirk, but I can tell you right now that it hasn't happened yet and I probably did so after seeing this." 

'That's a parado—" Dom began, but the Doctor just shushed him and gave him a withering, don't-even-bother expression. 

"When would be a good time, anyway? Around age 16, 17? When he'd be likely to take me seriously."

"This is really strange, this conversation we're having." Chris said. Dom nodded. 

"Tom's always been sharp," the Doctor shrugged, sitting back in their couch (also sleek black), over the giddiness but still obviously excited by the convergence, "that would work." 

"And therefore," Jack nodded at the Doctor and then turned his attention back to Chris and Dom, "when I hop back in time a ways, explain what's going on and what needs to be done, Tom Kirk obviously became instrumental in bringing and keeping the three of you together as he also became something of your keeper, your researcher. He was working for Torchwood, just keeping an eye on things, making sure all the pieces were in play. In fact there's a good possibility he may come to work for Torchwood soon on this timeline." He glanced up at Ianto, who looked very relieved to hear this news. 

"Which means Tom knew all about all of this, all this time?" Chris was unconvinced, but open-minded. He'd had the luxury of time to read through and process it, after all. He'd never been conked on the head and dragged caveman-style into a time machine on the blind hope that he would just accept it.

"Perhaps." The Doctor replied wistfully.

"So why would he wait this long to tell us anything?" As if that would have helped matters. Knowing he was a Princess wouldn't have done much good, and the whole betrothal thing would have been even weirder. Still, Dom was indignant.

"Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?" Ianto spoke again at last, injecting some sense into the proceedings as he went through collecting empty teacups. "I don't suspect he ever counted on you lot becoming as famous as you did, so he just became extra good at being extra mum about it all! Decided to only divulge the information when it was necessary! And obviously it's still not necessary, and obviously it won't be necessary until a later date."

The Doctor looked up, looked down and to the side, and another piece clicked in, so obviously that Dom could almost hear it. A rapid-fire mumbling followed. "Tom working for Torchwood. Torchwood knows things. Tom hears about the threat to Dolexaro, he puts the pieces in play. Oh, this is good." He nodded at Jack, who returned the look, impressed by the web as it became tighter. "But obviously he didn't get the news as it was happening. Because we're doing this now, we're going there _now_. Tom popped back in time to post that document to Chris. Think think think, why wouldn't anyone have heard sooner…? And even P.T., who knows everything as it happens, he didn't know there was an imminent danger. He just knew the folktales, the vocal history of what was happening to Dolexaro, to the Pleaidean Cluster. No one knew, no one still knows and no one will know because there's this big news – yes I'm going to say it – blackout." 

The Doctor was on his feet now, brow furrowed, stroking his chin again and pulling at his bottom lip as well for good measure, pacing between the two couches. "It's so close, it's so close, and this is everything, this is the _why_ , this is the very important part of the puzzle that's going to give us the upper hand if only I can figure it _out_! It takes almost four years for the information to reach Torchwood, to reach even the most outstretched nerve-ending of information-gathering. What’s significant about that?" 

"Wait." Chris spoke up, and pointed at the iPad that Jack was still holding. Jack held it up, indeed waiting for instructions. "Is there a…date on that document? Besides having to know when the iPad was invented, maybe if we know a date it will help. I don't remember seeing one, but—" 

"It's right on the loading screen," Jack murmured, shutting the device down and booting it back up again, "underneath the Torchwood logo, that's where it _would_ be at least. Unlikely that you'd notice it, it's so small."

Everyone in the room waited (but none as intensely as the Doctor) until Jack gave a little laugh when the logo popped up and read off: "16th of June 2010."

"Dolexaro might be a three day journey if the interference and detours prove to be what I think they might be," the Doctor pushed his hands around to rest on the back of his waist, elbows poking out again in the strange, almost bird-like thoughtful posture Dom had seen him take while making tea and telling him he was a Princess, "that's exactly three years, then. Exactly." 

"Matt," Chris said flatly, and then he caught himself, and shook his head for the correction, "I mean, Doctor. In there, there is something about the security measures taken on Dolexaro. I just thought it was telling some story, like, but if this is true—" 

"AHHH!" The Doctor suddenly wheeled around and pointed into the air, eyes alarmingly wide. "That's _it!_ The Ten Palaces of Dolexaro, the seat of the Ten thrones. Tenth throne leads to the Ninth leads to the Eighth and so on, but all of the palaces are connected, and they are that way for a reason, because the Royal family lives in the final palace, and if there's trouble, if there's an emergency, if there's a final activation of the highest protocols on the Ten Palaces of Dolexaro," he clapped his hands together violently and took a breath, "they lockdown for three years – which is how long it would take a signal sent from their last, weakest transmission system to reach the Shadow Proclamation. Oh, Chris, I could kiss you!" 

"I know." Chris replied absently. They were all contemplating exactly what this revelation meant.

"So when we get there, will we have to wait three years to get inside?" Dom asked, almost meek. None of the possibilities seemed like ideal ones.

"No, it happens in three days. It happens when we arrive, after we arrive." The Doctor had the same, somber tone. 

"We're the ones who set off the lockdown," Chris finished up what no one really wanted to say. There was nodding all around the room, "and there's no telling if we transmit the distress call and live to tell about it in person." 

"Well, obviously we survive," Dom said with a humorless laugh, feeling very low when no one immediately agreed, "because we do come back. We do. It's 2007 now, and we're still around. We're playing Wembley Stadium." 

"Time doesn't work like that." The Doctor murmured, not talking down at all, not patronizing, not anything like he'd sounded before. 

He was scared. It was a rare and terrifying window to glimpse with the Doctor, and someone Dom knew this, because as soon as he picked up on it and understood it, and felt that bone-deep fear, it was gone. The Doctor clapped his hands again, and plucked the iPad out of Jack's hands with a quick, tight smile. "Only one thing to do, then!" 

"Win?" Jack seemed to be knowing in the way he said it, but the Doctor wagged a finger at him as he stepped away. 

"No, not exactly. It's not about winning, it's not even about surviving, really. Those things are incidental. The really important thing here is the most important thing in the universe, in all of space and all of time." He turned around as he tucked the iPad into the lining of his jacket and then zipped it up. He met Dom's eyes and held out a hand, which Dom took without even thinking about it, only to find himself pulled up onto his feet. A warm touch came on his back, and very swiftly pressed down to the curve at the end, quickly enough to feel protective and quickly enough to inject Dom with a bit of hope. "I get into these impossible situations all the time, only in this particular go-round I'm a bit out of practice. It's all coming back though. Chris, we're leaving. Yeeeessss, it's all coming back, the most important thing to do when you're heading into a fight and you don't know who you're fighting and whether to bring a knife or a gun or just strap a target to your chest and hope for the best, when even the data seems to be against you, when all too often you forget that it's never about winning or surviving…it's about being _clever_. I am very much that, and very much ready. There has to be something we're not thinking of, and I have three days to think through it." He chuckled inside his throat and reached over and down to pinch Jack's cheek. Jack's long eyelashes blinked slowly as he sighed, shaking his head. 

"You're the most impossible person I've ever known. And the most brilliant." 

The Doctor gave Ianto a wry look. "You let him go on like that? I wouldn't let him go on like that. You know that tone of voice coming from him."

"Eh, stop it!" Ianto cuffed Jack, eliciting a sharp "ow!"

As they turned to go, Matt's hand stole to Dom's back again, and it pressed again, and it was like their little signal now, the thing that, even as the Doctor insisted that he walk ahead even though he had no idea where he was going, let Dom know that everything was proceeding just as planned. That no matter what, nothing changed the fact that the Doctor had taken on a mission, had promised to protect him, and he was determined to do his job. Also, he lived to prove how clever he was. 

Everything was proceeding just as planned. 

Halfway through the goodbyes and the thank yous, the Doctor suddenly turned around with one more question for Captain Jack. It wasn't a question, really, it was just a statement, designed to incite a response though it may have been. "Someone tried to kill us. Probably just him, but bullets don't discriminate. Can you look into that, Jack?" They were walking through a room brimming with shiny, packed-in technology, consoles and terminals here and there in what looked like a sleek, streamlined sort of office block. "Look into it and get back to me, you have three days." He clapped Jack on the shoulder. 

"Our system hasn't been behaving, though, obviously. Otherwise I'd _love_ to have a direct line to your TARDIS." 

The suggestion in that statement was too obvious to be ignored, and Dom turned at the same time that the Doctor did, hearing Chris give a put-upon sigh at the silliness of it all. "That's a good point. Your system hasn't been behaving. I'll switch around a few things, but that will no doubt distort the coordinates a little. You know, let's put it this way: why don't I just call _you?_ "

Dom waited for the Doctor to pass in front of him proudly, barely containing his laughter, and then the opportunity was all his to shoot Jack the most arrogant, possessive smile he could muster. He knew how to put a fair share of suggestion in his behavior, as well. When Jack saw it, and Dom breezed into line with the exiting trio, there was a scoff and a gently amazed exclamation: "I fucking _knew_ it!"


	12. Chapter 12

The lack of sleep, of food, of all those insignificant human things that made them "so difficult to care after" (the Doctor's words) finally caught up to them back on the TARDIS. There wasn't any talking about the situation they were facing; there wasn't that much talking at all, really. Apparently the Doctor was no longer taking culinary requests, as he went about immediately making something up without any input from the other two. Whatever Chris and Dom were offered, they would have been happy to eat, but the wholly unexpected chorizo pasta was a strange felicity even if it wasn't perhaps the best thing for a couple of empty stomachs just about to head to bed. 

The Doctor sat by as they ate, sipping a very vintage Moscato and receiving any compliments on his cooking as if the hobby were something he took great pleasure in showing off. Like a doting mother he nagged them on eating everything up so nothing would be wasted, at the same time that he urged them along. "I have a lot of very important things to do and I'd rather not have everyone hanging about while I'm working. Chop-chop." 

Chris was actually quite up on his sleep schedule, admitting that it was one of the few things he was even able to do the last few days, wandering otherwise around the TARDIS and fighting off what he could only assume was space-sickness with very frequent naps. Dom, on the other hand, was not, and even the prospect of sleep made him drowsy in his chair, picking over the food lazily, remembering to eat when the Doctor occasionally toed him in the calf under the table and fixed an impatient look on him. 

"No," post-supper, Chris was forcibly steered away from the strange hallway and toward the one Dom knew best, "the Royal Suites are all that way. In case anything happens I want both of you to be relatively close. Splitting up is the worst thing to do, and sometimes even I get lost in here, still. So Chris…go pick a room out down there. The one with the pink quilted duvet is Dom's already." 

As Chris chuckled and walked off down the hallway, Dom came dragging his feet behind. Certain, but not entirely sure he cared, that Chris was completely out of earshot and sight, he clutched onto the Doctor from behind and buried his tired face in the crook of his shoulder. "Lots of work to do?" 

"That's right, loads," the Doctor turned in his arms and held Dom's face up, swiping lovingly at the corners of his eyes with his thumbs, "you need some rest as much as I need to work." 

"Mmmmnnnn," Dom nodded in his hands, and then the Doctor dropped them down to the shoulders, clutching there with a sigh of obvious want, "join me later?" 

He pretended not to hear the request, continuing on his own little train of thought. "You look almost vulnerable when you're this sleepy. And your voice gets so much deeper, so…" he cut himself off and rubbed down Dom's arms, looking him over, "…you're going to distract me from what needs to be done, Dominic. Get some sleep. You really do need it." 

"I can read your mind, you know." He'd been keeping his eyes closed while the Doctor spoke, but opened them and smirked sleepily. "You like me vulnerable." 

"Do I?" He drew the slightest bit closer, angling his chin up, hands now flat on Dom's back, rubbing down. Down. Down as neither would be the first to break eye contact. 

"Yeah," it was time to exercise the control he had over the man who didn't like to relent any control whatsoever, to chew on a few whispering words as he made sure that the Doctor wouldn't see him to bed needing only to work, and that Matt would be left with something to think about after all that unconscious flirting. Even if he was doing so with a mind half in dreamland already, Dom was nothing if not determined, "you liked having me on my hands and knees, you liked it so much when you hurt me that little bit, too." 

He might have protested, but Dom smiled and chuckled with a masochistic twinge of happiness, and instead the Doctor just groaned softly and then shook his head, rapidly banishing the thoughts. "No, don't do that. You're not going to distract me. I'm trying to save our lives, here, you have to go to sleep, you have to let me work." 

"I will." He was more than convinced that he'd done his job, and so he moved aside and patted the Doctor on the arm, yawning as he walked through the threshold toward his bedroom. 

"Not even a goodnight kiss, then? Fine." 

Dom paused and turned around, the look on his face going beyond incredulous and actually steering into the realm of insulted. "You know what would happen if we even kissed right now. Likely I wouldn't let you stop, you've been such a tease without even knowing it these past few hours. You were inside of me less than a day ago and already it feels like it's been too long, like I'm starting to forget everything. So you know what would happen. No goodnight kiss, then. No. Focus on your work. I'll be in bed." 

It took a few seconds of pause before the reply finally broke from the Doctor's lips. "Right. Goodnight."

As Dom stretched his arms over his head and disappeared through the door he felt the eyes on him. He yawned, "Goodnight." Past the threshold and already pulling off his jacket, he proceeded to leave a trail of clothing behind him, careless of whether it was the ultimate bachelor thing to do, unconscious of anything really except how sleepy he was, how relieved he was to be getting into bed again at last, how good the bed actually felt. 

A few sharp pangs of worry hit as he drifted off to sleep, naked beneath the sheets. He considered reaching for his iPod, though that would have included the effort involved in finding his pants again. As if an answer to his problem, just then, he heard music from the flight deck. The Doctor was working. He was able to replace the worry with the feelings that mattered more. Matt's hand on his back, lips on his neck, breath on his skin...

When he slept, he didn't dream. Which was very usually the case. Dominic's brain wasn't programmed to dream, it seemed most of the time, though he messed about with a few rolling daydreams in and out of the hours between initial waking and getting out of bed. On the TARDIS he slept hard and he slept well, and there was a way his mind reacted when he heard a voice at his ear that told him he was probably capable of sleeping much, much longer. 

"Dom. Dominic. Dom. Wake up, it's been eight hours. Wake up." 

He wanted to play at sleeping, still, but knew it wouldn't do any good. It was the Doctor's voice. No, it was _Matt's_ voice, slightly exuberant, shouting in whispers by the end. And Matt was not exactly a stranger to waking him up with simple verbal persistence. Dom groaned and tried to roll away from the voice, but what happened next ensured that he was not going back to sleep anytime soon. It also confirmed just how hard he had been sleeping. 

He rolled right into one of his arms, and then couldn't roll any further. It caught, and stuck, and when he tried to move it, and the other one with it, he was only met with resistance - a soft but absolute resistance around his wrists. He heard the giggles first, and then his eyes snapped open, and he was looking right at Matt. "Oh, you look gorgeous." Matt said, very softly, an impish smile taking over as he leaned over him from the side.

"You handcuffed me to the bed?!" As soon as he spoke, sleepy and rough but still as loudly as he could, one of Matt's hands flew to his lips, pressing against them. 

"Ssshhhh. Shh. Chris is right in the next room, he obviously couldn't be arsed to walk more than two doors into the hall. Sensible. But it makes it a little difficult. He can't be sleeping as soundly as you were, after all. If he's sleeping at all, in which case…we'd better be extra quiet." It took him several seconds to free Dom to speak again, staring with quiet fascination as he moved his fingertips over his lips, finally smiling and giving a little happy noise as he tucked his hands both up under his chest and pulled a little further up onto Dom. "But yes. I did handcuff you to the bed. I think it makes things more interesting. Besides, and even though I realize now how utterly silly it is since you didn't even get the chance to see them and now couldn't without considerable flexibility, I picked this quaint pair of suede-lined, industrial-strength cuffs out of P.T.'s warehouse back in The Grid, which I think you'd rather approve of." 

Dom cleared his throat and tried to check that his breath wasn't as bad as he imagined it might be, mumbling "Oh, so you've been planning this for some time, then." 

"I'll admit, I didn't expect the opportunity to present itself so soon." 

"How do you know you're not doing this against my will? How do you know I'm not upset?" 

Calmly, he replied. "I know I'm not doing this against your will. I know you're not upset. Because I also know _you_." 

It also didn't hurt that Dom was smiling to split his face, delighted as could be.

Matt obviously didn't care about his breath, because he was on him next, obviously making up for the lack of a goodnight kiss with firm, hungry lips and a deeply darting tongue, sighing and touching him over the face and neck, the bound arms. Though he kept his eyes closed, customarily, Dom could feel Matt slide over him, the luxuriously soft and satiny material of his favorite red jacket rubbing Dom's skin where it moved. 

He realized that Matt had, indeed, joined him in bed, had joined him under the covers, as he slipped further over him and Dom opened his eyes when the kiss was broken, not unpleasantly but in the only way that a kiss impossible to end could be broken. Matt sat up a little bit and the impishness faded to show a shade of mystery, depth, passion as he licked the taste of the kiss from his lips with just the tip of his tongue. Hair blacker-than-black, skin paler-than-pale, eyes narrow but lividly blue, and that jacket such a perfect crimson color to set it all off. Dom fisted his hands above the line of the cuffs and cursed softly, out loud, at not being able to touch him. It made Matt tilt his head just slightly, waiting for the next reaction. 

"Looking at something?" 

Dom smirked at the prompt. _I can play it like this._ Matt as a manager of situations of every sort, from the mundane to the wildly spectacular, as an order-giver, was nothing new to Dom. He saw it and he often liked it, if for no other reason than to know that it would keep Matt occupied with being in control. But this went a little further, this was the person who didn't simply come out for a drink with his mates. A personality, a side of Matt confined to the bedroom, a soft-spoken and undeniable dominant force that Dom very much wanted to reckon with. "I love that jacket." 

"That's very good. I thought you did." His voice didn't quaver, exactly, but it broke with a quickly checked brightness in the face of his darker persona, as he reached up to finger the zipper, which he'd drawn all the way up to the collar. Dom asked the only logical question that came next. 

"Why did you wear it to bed?" He grinned wide, and Matt grinned back, and he bit his lip and caught his breath, the rush catching up to him as he realized how sexy their voices sounded when they mingled in whispers. "Right, what have you got on under there?" He purred, his mind still following the logical path. 

Matt smirked and only gave one puff of a laugh. Then the tiniest of growls, deep in his throat where inimitable sounds still managed to be born and hit Dom in all the right places. His fingers circled the zipper and then gripped it like the most delicate thing, pulling it down without a word. Tooth by tooth the zipper came undone, revealing only flesh beneath, until the visible line disappeared below the covers. It answered Dom's question, at least, but now there were so many more things to ask. Mostly requests for Matt to do ferocious, despicable things to him, as quickly as possible.

Matt's smile was weighty, lusty, and he placed his palms flat on Dom's chest and proceeded to lie, more or less, with one leg off to the side, on top of him. 

"Oh." Dom gasped as the weight settled from his chest to his thighs, letting his eyes close again. Matt pulled himself up to even out their lips, bare skin touching where the jacket parted down the center, and further below that, all the way to the foot that Matt rubbed playfully around his. Naked. Completely. Except for that bomber. 

"Is it to His Majesty's liking?" Matt said in a breathy whisper which Dom pushed into for a quick kiss. 

"I can't begin to say how much," his senses, still waking at the very base of his consciousness, began to come alive with little bursts of desire, "you're more inventive than I gave you credit for. So you're going to fuck me like this?" Dom asked, volume seated at the lowest register of his vocal cords, more or less a rumble. It was enough to make Matt steal a kiss from him this time, actually tearing into his mouth a little, the contained, compact violence making Dom squirm with excitement. 

"Depends on how you define things."

Dom was a tad confused, but not too confused to reject the far-beyond-reasonable feeling of the sucking lips under his chin, on his throat. "That so?" 

"Mmm," Funny how speaking in relative quiet made everything so important to hear. Even having to keep the volume of his moaning in check made what he chose to let go of seem that much more intense. He moaned then, so Matt's lips would feel it thrumming as they passed over his neck and back around again. Matt paused, "but why not you this time? I had my fun. Well…still would be having it. Eh?"

"Matt, I'm not in the best position to be doing that. Unless you were planning on uncuffing me. Which would be much less fun." 

"You're right, it would. But you're wrong about the other thing. You're in the perfect position to be doing that." He rose away just a few inches from Dom's face, and when Dom opened his eyes, he was there, and he couldn't look away, couldn't ever look away from a face so challenging, so awkwardly beautiful, those eyes just probing him, searching out his weaknesses (not sure if he wanted to exploit them?). This was beyond and above Matt. It made him wonder, as he simmered with want, the heat stoked by the latest words between them. What it meant, he was entirely certain. But how was it _Matt_? 

"I'm jealous of your girlfriends, anyone who got to know this side of you before I did." They were truthful words, spoken with a hint of baiting, and Matt reacted almost tenderly, leaning in again to kiss him, much less violently this time. One hand slid down, found its way between them, and pulled at his cock lazily. Dom was too grateful for the sentiment not to be carried by the tone of the "oh, yes" he groaned, almost loud enough to earn a hand over his mouth once more. 

"Well you're wrong again. This isn't how I usually am. I don't know I would be with anyone else. I don't know how to _read_ women, Dom, I don't know how they think – they're like humans times a million, with some unknown and constantly changing species thrown in, and that's why I've always let them run the show. You've met all my girlfriends, you know my type." He sighed and stopped himself from babbling, closing his eyes to regain his more natural rhythm, both for his words and for the hand that was still working over Dom. Despite the surging battalions of pleasant sensations waging war for attention in his mind, Dom took enough from Matt's words to pick out the underlying meaning: _I'm an alien, too, after all._ "Sorry. Carried away with that thought. Anyway, no. Not this side. Not anyone. Besides, why be jealous of my girlfriends? I don't think I've ever tied one of them to the bed and fucked myself on her cock, now, right?" 

He pressed a kiss to Dom's cheek, grinning at the reaction he was already getting. Dom felt his cock twitch strongly at those words, as Matt's grip got stronger around it. And he whimpered, and Matt sighed, and he grabbed Matt's ear in his teeth when it passed close to his mouth, and Matt gasped. He bit down, only to be met with a happy grunt. They both laughed gently, laughter that melted into deeper, more animal sounds, and might just as well have been one in the same by the time Matt reached behind himself and threw back the Egyptian cotton sheets and the heavy duvet. 

Eyes on Dom, who could do nothing but pull one knee up, if only to test the movement, Matt drew his tongue across his palm and stroked him to a wet stiffness. It only took a few more moments to be straddling him, sitting just above his hips, pushing back against his hard cock, head tossed back, eyes closed, soft little noises of kittenish sex more suited to him than Dom ever imagined. He leaned forward a little bit and held himself up on Dom's chest, fingers spreading out as his hips continued to move, testing the positioning, biting his bottom lip. "Never done this before," he said with a half-grin, bottom lip popping free from the clutch of his teeth. "But yeah. I've thought about it. You wanted to know about those dreams I've had, Dom?" 

_Oh, god, yes I want to know…_

Matt laughed into his shoulder and then shook the smile off of his face resolutely. He pushed forward just a bit, and shifted his weight to one hand. The other, he offered up in front of Dom's face, eyebrows twitching only subtly to make the silent implication into a command. Dutifully, Dom sucked the fingers into his mouth, as Matt watched him and talked around the obvious urge to just let his mouth fall open and stay that way.

"Oh, the things I've thought of doing, Dominic," he said, almost absent-minded, in a haze of thought that was flavored with growling mischief, "my dreams would make some people mental, if they had to be around you as much as I was. Know what I knew. Never say a damned thing. Grow up like nothing was amiss. Watching my Princess. Keeping you in check. Keeping myself in check was even harder. Sometimes I swear I could have fucked you right there on stage, you became so perfect to me, something I feared and something I loved unconditionally. But no, I couldn't touch you, that would have been too much. And I didn't want to touch anyone else the way I wanted to touch you. You made me almost _dark_ , Dominic, and I'm not a dark person, you know that." He withdrew his hand, glancing down at the fingers glistening slick with Dom's efforts, and flashed a smile at him as he reached back. He reached back, and kept speaking as he opened himself up, as he probed himself and breathed in, moaned sharply, bent low over Dom's chest, the red fabric falling up his back as he thrust up into the air. "You were a future I had no clue about. You are still as much of a mystery as you have always been. In more than 900 years of existing, I can easily say no one's had this effect on me, and only a very small sliver of me wants that to be part of all the betrothal hoodoo they fixed us up with so I wouldn't go back on my word. Because how could I go back on my word? How, when it's you?" Spreading fingers inside of himself, he opened his mouth against Dom's shoulder and cried out, muffling the sound with skin before biting it gently. 

"Oh, jesus, what I wouldn't give to be able to use my hands right now." Dom was in the best sort of pain, it was obvious all over, but it became most apparent in his voice. 

Matt glanced up at him, pressing in as deeply as he could, still at the angle that allowed Dom to see. "Yeah? What would you do?" 

"Give you the hardest smack on the arse I possibly could." 

"Mmm, that's good. That's very good." He sighed thoughtfully and drew himself up, balancing on Dom's stomach as he ran his free hand through his hair. A few shoots of black stood straight up after the move, falling over again only when he tilted his head down. 

Dom had considered not pushing the topic further, but found it impossible to do anything else. All the groping he wanted to do with his fingers would have to be done with his voice, with questions to get as deep inside of Matt as possible. "I made you almost dark, you say?" 

"Oooh, what is that tone? I like that tone." 

"Well, we have to be quiet, remember? Chris?" 

Matt had removed his hand only to slick it and transfer it to Dom's cock, visibly pleased that he hadn't lost a bit of the firmness the last touch had left him with. _How could I have? This is better than porn, this is almost better than something real, and I suppose I can think that because he's an alien and I'm an alien and we're on a fucking spaceship, so how is it not unreal? Surreal at the very least._ The way the jacket was open down the center of Matt's chest, leaving a pale and lovely and subtly toned skin beneath, every heavy breath making the muscles over his stomach visibly constrict and expand. 

"Ah yes. That little problem. But you're not just being quiet, you're getting into _dangerous territory_ and you know it." 

"You handcuffed me to a bed. You mentioned darkness. You already went there." 

"One moment, then. I'll tell you everything, every horrible filthy thought I had, but first—" he cut the entire line off, but no more words were needed when he drew up onto his knees and pressed back, holding Dom's cock carefully against his entrance, lowering himself, eyes closing reflexively. All those faces, from the grimace of delicious pain to the open-mouthed, bowed-eyebrows of perfect pleasure, Dom had seen before. _You whore, you really do bring your sex faces onstage. Should have figured._ Amusing as that revelation may have been in retrospect, the feeling was too much to think past, and Dom's broken, shuddering moan as Matt surrounded him and seated himself was the entirety of what he could vocally produce.

Until, that is, he let fly with a well-placed: "Fucking _hell!_ " and thrashed just slightly in his bonds. Matt seemed similarly taken by the position, nodding breathlessly in agreement with the sentiment, Moving only enough to assume the position most conducive to movement with Dom completely inside of him. "I've never…never…" 

"Oh come on," Matt finally whispered at him with mocking incredulity, "all those girls? Surely someone measured up. Speaking of measuring up…" He rolled his hips and his breath hitched, and Dom swallowed the reaction that wanted to be louder than it could be. It made him a bit light-headed, all the pleasure combined with physically holding back his own exultations. All he could do was hope to come hard enough to relieve all of it. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that it would happen. 

The journey, however, was going to be a long one, it seemed. "No, not ever. Matt, my god, so. Fucking. Tight. Oh, god, don't ever stop."

Matt let out a little laugh, and tested a longer stroke, drawing up on his knees a bit more, movements short but fluid. Impossible to look away. "That's up to _you_." He rolled his head back and, once used to the movement, brought himself down harder, experimenting with different rhythms. Dom found himself staring _(his throat, his chest, his thighs, my that fucking throat)_ , and the bursts of pure feeling that took over combined with his inability to move and made words escape his lips before he could check and edit them. 

"I want to leave bite marks all over you right now." 

Matt's eyebrows flashed up as his head snapped back, he looked at Dom, and winked, his pace rather steady now, a few treble notes rising by the half-second whenever Dom felt him drop back down. "Good." He said thickly, not checking his volume on that one. The unexpected ferocity of his tone made Dom's entire body heat up, even more than he thought was possible.

_You'd better let me go after we're finished, because I intend to make that wish a reality, then._

"Well, get on with it, now. Tell me what you were thinking before." With this, he channeled the frustration of having to keep everything under a heavy whisper the only way he could. A moment after Matt pulled up, he threw his hips up to meet him, their bodies colliding with incredible force. The first time it drew a louder-than-expected cry from the man he suddenly, badly wanted to refer to by every filthy sexual slur on the planet (and beyond?), just to satisfy the frustration he was feeling (although everything else he felt was so, so, so worth it). 

Matt shook his head. "After." He managed between Dom's upward thrusts, and then reached out to cover his mouth. The jacket fell loose around his shoulders and gathered on his arms, exposing more but leaving a swathe of red fabric around his middle that was even more impossibly sexy than it was before. Dom grabbed one of the knuckles in his mouth and bit down as he screamed throatily, the sound effectively muffled. Open-mouthed and seemingly powerless to remove his hand, Matt just stared down at him in awe. 

They didn't need the verbal cues Dom may have kidded himself with under any other circumstances. The simple, raw, ferocious feeling of Matt on top of him, around him, forcing him to come, would have been enough, but the look on his face just added to that, and a psychic moment passed between one upward thrust and the next, so fast and fleeting that anyone else might have missed it. But Dom knew what it meant; he knew perfectly. Relying on the instinct of feeling so much, he let go of Matt's knuckle and just gasped: "Yes."

But Matt was already moving faster, leaning back a bit, drawing his now-bruised hand down Dom's chest as he fucked and was fucked, as deeply as Dom could manage, as hard as Matt could force them both. They gasped and choked little half-cries out of time with one another, Dom on the upstroke and Matt on the downstroke, until Dom's fingernails bit into his palms with the fists he made tighter and tighter, and he opened his mouth in a silent cry _you beautiful slut bitch whore I love you I love you I love you—_

"Matt!" he breathed as his orgasm hit a second wave and Matt continued to roll his hips, only slightly slower than before; responded with a guttural moan. 

_I love you? Goddamnit._

_Not going to think about that right now._

The eyes he'd closed instinctively when he felt himself coming opened again, and Matt was still riding him until he was bone dry and left for dead. The red fabric of his jacket only half-concealed the fact that he was quite determinedly getting himself off now that he only had to concentrate on his own rhythm. Dom was transfixed by the sight, but transfixed was all he could be. There was little to distract him in his post-orgasmic haze, and as Matt pulled himself off of the raw nerve that was his now-soft cock, a _very_ dark flash of a smile showed as Dom gave a pained sound. 

"God yes I like it, I like you vulnerable. I _love_ you vulnerable, and even when you're made of pure testosterone, even just now when I had you inside of me and it wasn't really clear who was in control…hm. Even then. I keep thinking of you reduced to something," this was the dark Matt talking, Matt who was breathing shallow near his own orgasm but still whispering almost frantically, Matt moving up his chest a bit more, hand flying tightly around his gorgeous cock. Dom, who couldn't look away even if he wanted to. Which he certainly didn't, "reduced to something, but never losing that fight. I guess that's it, I guess I want you to _fight_ me a little, Dominic. After all, isn't male-on-male aggression always supposed to be sort of vaguely sexual, anyway? I used to rile you up purposefully, just for that." 

The pure logic of every alien calculation Matt had ever made became so glaringly apparent, and Dom almost wanted to laugh. But there was no laughing in this situation. He already wanted to fuck him again. He almost never wanted to go again, not so soon, not so madly, and certainly not as spent as Matt had rendered him, but there were years to make up for, there were fights and altercations and onstage acts of violence to make up for. 

"Yeah, you couldn't misjudge any of that now if you were a _blind_ Dolexari Princess. I wanted to hurt you – superficially at least – and I loved it when I did. Because you took it from me. And that was as good as I could get." 

"Why never anything more?" Yes, he wanted to get as deep as possible, he wanted to twist and screw his inquiries as sharply inside of Matt as he could, until mercy was _Matt's_ for the begging.

"Oh, sure," Matt smiled as he stroked faster, physically close but mentally far away, and near enough that with a little more maneuvering he could have left things to the Royal Cock-Sucking Lips without a problem. But he didn't, "yeah that would have been easy to do without explanation, wouldn't it? Let's throw the drummer across an amp and fuck him whether he likes it very much or not? Only good in theory." 

Dom paused, newly satisfied by an explosive climax but not too fargone that the mental image didn't make him gasp. He didn't focus on the past that was now and would always be a bit of a figment, a bit of a lie (beautiful one though it may have been), but the very real and _very_ wrong conjurations this brought up were not doing much to dissuade his desire to have another round, this time possibly with Matt the one helpless below. "Well. Doesn't seem that way right now."

"Oh, well, it's lovely wank material, that's true." 

" _Taking_ me? By force?" He used the more pleasantly connotative words, and smiled as darkly as Matt had. 

"Fuck, Dominic." Matt looked stunned for a moment, and then closed his eyes and shook his head to the side. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and his strokes became very, very determined. "Open your mouth." The command Dom had been secretly waiting for. If nothing else, he would prove to Matt how easy it was. 

Though he'd never been in this position, either, there was absolutely nothing degrading or even slightly _off_ about it, even considering the line of conversation. Everything was made perfect by desire, everything was wild and furious and so… _hot, so incredibly hot._ Only a little actually landed on Dom's lips. It was about familiarity, it was about trust, it was about those unspoken things that went between them, things like the _I love you_ that Dom still didn't want to think about, and which certainly didn't have much of a place when he was wearing Matt's come from the neck up and subtly smiling about it. 

"Oh my god…" Matt recovered with a rumble of impassioned shock, staring down at him, and Dom laughed when his fingers dragged over his cheek, gathering up a bit to push between his lips when they opened again, "you're right. I was a twat to deny you this." 

He swallowed with an "mmm" that was made manifest by the sweat and sex that surrounded them, the intensity and need still hanging in the air thick and heavy. "So will you?"

Matt laughed genuinely, not checking his volume. "No."

"Right, then." Dom nodded as best he could, grin breaking through despite his first inclination to withhold it. "Uncuff me. We'll see you deny me anything."

There was a distinct moment during which Matt actually froze with what Dom could only presume was self-preserving fear. Despite however Matt may have taken his words, Dom still smiled. _That's right. Your move._


	13. Chapter 13

Matt's – the Doctor's – Matt's hands were still slightly weak from the exertion, from desire, as he relieved Dominic of his bonds. Slowly, he unlocked the first shackle and pulled the flat, rounded cuff apart, running one finger inside to feel the suede lining hot and moist with sweat. He smiled and let out a vague "mmm" sound as he rubbed over Dom's wrist, pink and slightly darker pink from the straining, the friction. 

"Did it hurt?" Matt glanced down to ask. On his knees, straddling Dom's chest still. Dom looked straight up and back to address him, smiling, his perfect Princess dressed in come and nothing.

"I've been handcuffed before." 

"As have I," Matt responded slyly, not to be swayed by Dom's attempts to rile him with jealousy, "I want to know if these were a good investment, is all." He unmistakably indicated the cuffs, leaning in to kiss Dom's other wrist as he set it free, this one (the left one – Dom tended to jerk to his right, Matt noticed, which put quite a strain on his dominant arm) sporting a pretty purple bruise. 

Dom hissed and replied as if he were impossibly distracted. "Yeah…yeah. They were great. Course you could have tied me up with rope and I wouldn't have complained, with the way we just fucked." 

"Really. I'll keep it in mind." 

Dom grunted and sighed in mock exasperation, pulling his hands down with another gentle hiss. "Don't start." 

Matt was far from continuing, at least, suddenly given to silence when he felt Dom's hands brush strongly over his hips, re-acquainting themselves, finding their strength and their grip. He pushed off from the ironwork of the headboard, and settled back, finding a seat over Dom's stomach. 

It had been good. It had been unbelievably good. It had been so much better than good. In all of his dark, twisted fantasies, he'd never thought that much about turning the tables, about having Dom inside of him. It had always been his fantasy, after all, and in his fantasy he was in control, in his fantasy he staked claim and he was worshipped. He took, he didn't give. And yet Dom was subverting all of that. Maybe he always had been. Compromising Matt's power, his sometimes unconscious strive to overbear. In that, it was all so much more important, bordering on meaningful, elevating Dom to something much more than just a friend, and much more than just a body to tie up and fuck. 

He had been willing, he had been eager, he had been so hard and so hot. Matt lowered one hand as an unflinching touch pushed up beneath the loose-hanging hem of his jacket, and wrapped his balmy fingers around Dom's. Though it hadn't been his first intention, he found himself gripping tightly, rocking his hips just a little bit into the touch. 

Something was in that touch. Dom's hands were pleasantly dry, warm but hardly sticky-searing like Matt's. They felt wonderful on his hip, the slight roughness on the palms and the calluses on the joints of his fingers each individually distinguishable. Intimate. Like no one else. Matt gave into the respite of soft touches and silent recovery, and closed his eyes as his skin flared up in radiating heat where Dom's hands traveled. The swift frenzy of their coupling was replaced by an entirely different, slow-burning feeling, while Matt's inner rhythm built itself back up in long, rolling waves from the power of his orgasm. 

_His face, oh god, he let me come on his face, he didn't—_

A whimper betrayed his silence, like waking discontent interrupted by a fantastic stretch. Aloofness marked by passion. Dom had his hands up the middle of Matt's chest now, spreading his fingers wide apart, raking over the long line of his torso. "You can be hot as fuck when you want to be." His voice rumbled, even more post-coital when it was _actually_ post-coital, the sort of voice that was a natural tranquilizer; a chloroform-soaked rag of a voice, a bait. A lullaby in deeper-than-dulcet tones. 

"Keep going." It wouldn't have taken much under the current circumstances, but Matt could feel his cock stirring back to life from all the stimulation. Those hands. That voice. It made him smile. He was still closing his eyes, tilting his head back just a little. Dom reached all the way up to stroke his neck, fingers playing with it. Matt felt a hint of an overture in that motion, but wouldn't let himself think too long on it. Besides, Dom began talking again. And that demanded his full attention. 

"You turn into some other sort of person, like this." 

"Like what?" 

"In bed." 

"In bed? Don't necessarily have to be in bed, do we?" 

Dom sighed. "I think it helps, personally."

"The sooner you stop hiding in euphemisms the sooner you'll make me hard again." 

"And then I get to deny you…and deny you…and deny you…until you're begging me with that dirty mouth of yours to let you come." 

Matt opened his eyes at this, tentatively at first with a lift of his eyebrows, and then fully until he was staring at Dom, who wore a cheeky half-smile in the wake of those words. "Well, that's better." 

He couldn't help but wonder not if Dom had something up his sleeve, but rather exactly what it was and how he planned to spring it. "I try." 

"Maybe you become someone else entirely, too?" Matt went to shrug the jacket off, suddenly feeling the uncomfortable clutch of heat confining his body, but Dom's hand flew up, faster than he'd moved since he was released from his bonds. 

"No!" He almost spoke too loudly, and then grinned, at first sheepishly and then wickedly. Eyes softening into a lustful glare. "Leave it on." 

"You like it?" 

Dom bit his bottom lip and nodded. The silent laugh that followed shook his shoulders beautifully. His fingers were still roaming, clutching at Matt's thighs, squeezing the solid muscles under his palms, his insistent fingers. "You know," Matt smirked, somehow keeping his balance though he had no idea how, "I sort of expected you to flip me over and retaliate when I uncuffed you." 

"Are you disappointed?" Dom raised his eyebrows, rubbing in closer to Matt's groin rhythmically, with each moment. 

"Not sure. Depends." 

"I thought I would, too. But you let me go and all I wanted to do was touch you. Take my time." 

"That doesn't disappoint me at all." Matt tilted his head back and smiled again. One of Dom's hands brushed his cock playfully. The other hand came back up to his throat. This time there was no mistaking it. This time it was stronger; definitely an overture, a test. Matt hummed beneath the touch. 

"But for the sake of argument," Dom almost whispered, the words nearly lost in the roughness of his voice, "what did you think I would do? Exactly?" 

Matt quirked one eyebrow, and he twitched as Dom wrapped his fingers around him softly. He wanted details. The stakes were rising. Really, Matt had no choice. "I thought you would sit up. Grab me. Pull me in and kiss me, all violent. So I could taste myself. So you could bite, so you could growl and grind up into me." 

"Like this?" Dom was in slow-motion compared to the visions Matt had, but that didn't make the reality any less appealing. Matt instinctively tossed his arms around Dom's shoulders as the blond came up into a sitting position, and as he fell back into his lap he was very pleased that Dom was already half-hard, himself. His legs were planted in the mattress on either side of their bodies, but with the shifting center of gravity he found it much easier (and more functional) to wrap them around Dom's back, a move that was greatly aided by his thighs being physically guided to that end. He squeezed tightly, burying his ankles in the small of Dom's back where his love touches usually went.

They kissed slowly, hungrily, desire building as did their strength. Hands found hair. Then shoulders, backs. Nails scratched skin and teeth collided and tongues thrust and rolled firmly like close, strong fucking. Matt tasted the sharp bitterness of his come on Dom's lips, and he smiled into that mouth as they only just managed to breathe.

Minutes stretched on, time sinking between the seconds spent grabbing lips with teeth, pulling hair and teasing ears and throats with kisses. Violence tenderly hewn and gently doled, the sort of intimate roughness that was entirely genuine and yet lazy enough to fly under the radar. At last Dom held himself apart and murmured the obvious, which still sounded and felt so good even if it went without saying. "You're hard." 

"So are you. And what are you going to do about it?" Matt rolled his hips in Dom's lap, his cock sliding between their bellies. He was certainly not above a little flirting.

"I think you were in the process of telling me."

Matt pushed and spread his fingers through Dom's hair, leaning in closer to his ear as he spoke, eyes fluttering closed. "The way I saw it," one pass of his hand, then two, and then his fingers grabbed, fisting in the longer hair and pulling the ear towards his mouth, "you flipped me over and fucked me hard, came on my back and treated me like a proper whore." 

"But you're not a whore." 

He was a little bit shocked, and there was no hiding the twinge of smirking disappointment in his tone. "I'm not? Really?"

Dom met his incredulousness with ease, shaking his head. "No. That would mean I'm giving you something in return, wouldn't it? Whores don't enjoy it, necessarily, do they?" 

"Now you're arguing semantics." 

"Best one of us does. You're a _slut_ , Matthew." 

A pause. He breathed in deeply, quickly through his nose. "All right, that does have a much sexier ring coming from you." The way Dom pronounced the word, so much emphasis on the 's', such a sleek, desirous sound.

"So why would I want to put you on your knees like that? I had too much fun watching you enjoy yourself before." Dom was lifting Matt easily as he pulled one leg underneath himself, moving into a kneel and then pitching forward gently. 

"You want to watch me, then?" 

"I want to. Yes. And I want to touch you this time. I want to fuck you deep on your back and touch you. And then—" 

Matt hit the mattress softly and his jacket fell open as Dom held him down, hands around his biceps. Pushing. Unrelenting. Any playfulness that may have seemed present in their outward behavior was only an undercurrent in what they felt from one another. A wave, a dynamic, something neither could put his finger on. It may have been that intangible thing that had bound them together in the first place. But that would be too easy, that would be taking all of the responsibility away. Knowledge. Familiarity. Discovering each other all over again, and having no reservations, having no doubts. The Unspeakable Thing was just that – unspeakable. A word everyone knew and no one wanted to breathe too soon. Such a fragile word, such a misunderstood word, a word and a thing with more weight and more misconceptions about it than any other word in the English language. 

So they fucked to confirm it and to forget it at the same time, to run from it because they were both so very scared of it. Matt knew. Did Dom know? It was unspeakable; he'd not know, either way, until it was time.

Almost. It almost broke through and invaded Matt's brain, but then it didn't. He seemed confused for a moment, between smiling and scowling beneath Dom, because the Unspeakable Thing had been worming at his consciousness. 

Thankfully, Dom broke the silence and preserved the moment. He was not play-acting anymore (and it was hard to determine whether he had been during their cooldown and recovery, even), a true curiosity arming him: "Are the Dolexari good lovers?"

Matt wavered. Dom noticed.

"What was that? That look?" He asked.

"It's just…that's a tricky one." 

"You wouldn't know?" Dom lifted his eyebrows, stunned by the potential revelation. 

"Well, for you…for your... _kind_. I don't think many people would." 

"The Dolexari."

"Dolexari _men_." 

Dom paused, and then he was laughing brightly, holding himself up by his hands. Matt took the opportunity to stare, the muscles of Dom's arms flexing under the strain of the laughter, sculpted, fine. Almost enough to make him forget about the line of conversation, in those few seconds. But Dom was back as soon as he was gone. "What, are we second class citizens? Are we not _allowed_?" 

Again, Matt wavered silently. And that said it all. 

"Oh come _on_ , you're not serious?" 

"Deadly serious, actually. Which is why _you_ being royalty? And other-people-being-royalty-I –really-don't-like-to-say-other-names-when-I'm-ready-to-fuck-sorry…is such a big damn deal!" 

"But we were. You were. If I'd been a girl, and we'd been betrothed…?" 

"My being married to you means that we would mate until you conceived. Then, my usefulness would have run its course." 

Dom was still a little stunned. Okay, more than a little. His expression was truly strange, not quite agape and not quite caught mid-word, eyes squinting, presenting an silent and surely understood question. Then, he ruined all the subtlety by speaking. "What a nutter planet!" 

"Listen, can we not talk about this? You're a phenomenal lover and that's all I'm concerned with right now. Their loss." 

"I'm not sure I want to go back, now. I mean, what if they castrate me? What if they—" 

"Dom. Did you hear me? What's it going to take, do I have to lie here and be—" he cut himself off when he realized what he was saying, how quickly he was talking without thinking. The damage, however, was already done. Dom stopped thinking about the Dolexari and zeroed in on that last, half-uttered word. 

He tilted his chin down at Matt. "…yes. That would be nice."

"Not yet. I need something to beg for, first. And the mood has been sufficiently compromised, though I'll admit that look on your face is helpi-- _oh! Oohh…_." Matt tensed and went boneless shuddering in tandem instants, train of thought derailed as Dom reached down and pushed a finger lightly but oh-so-obviously against his entrance. The spot was still unspeakably tender, so tender that even Dom's most gentle touches made him convulse slightly, open his mouth and silently cry out, wanting something hard and thick to fill him again or nothing at all. 

Something about this very particular desire made him noisy even when he didn't want to be. It wasn't particularly because the waiting and the wanting and the inexplicably powerful itch inside of him was a painful thing (it was, but not enough to warrant the mewling distress). It was more like a preparation, more like heading the feeling off, the feeling he hadn’t been prepared for but which he now couldn't forget. When he had come down on top of Dom, drawing his cock inside, the sensation had been unreal. He had even set the pace himself, known exactly what was happening, and he had still gone breathless and felt the bolt of feeling surge through him. Sort of a pain and sort of a catharsis, a relief, a feeling that took over everything else and replaced it, pushed it out, hurt to love him. He wanted it again, but he didn't know how ready he was. So he whimpered and moaned, softly as he could.

"Tell me what you want." Dom whispered at the perfect time, fingers slick with saliva, two inside of him and moving easily. It wasn't enough, oh god it wasn't enough. 

"Fucking…do it. Do it to me." 

"Mm-hmm. Well that's vague." 

"You liked it." 

"I like hearing you talk in that tone of voice, no matter what." He did with his fingers what he had been only able to do with his words and questions before, twisting them slightly as he thrust them as far as they would go, enjoying the look on Matt's face as he held back his cries, bit his own knuckles (the one bore a darkening spot from where Dom had bit it roughly). "But no, I want to hear it all from you; tell me _exactly_ what you want." 

Matt made another one of those whimpering sounds, and placed one foot on Dom's bicep. It felt good there, he found, originally wanting to pull it away. Dom was watching him. Expecting an answer. "Oh, fuck. Dom. Fuck me, fuck me again." 

"Mm?" 

"You bastard," he grumbled, lovingly coarse. He covered his face with one hand for a few moments, before launching into a quick, clipped, manic tear, " _please!_ Please, for the love of god right now. I'm actually in physical pain wanting your cock inside of me right now, just fuck me until I'm no good for a whole _day_ , Dom, do it." 

A pause. He was actually panting. Certainly, that had been enough. 

Then Dom shook his head. "Not good enough. Not yet." 

Oh. So this was the trick. "What do you _mean_? Oh my god…" 

"When we're through this time, you know we're going to be done, we're going to be gone. Maybe not you, fucking alien, but I think I could already sleep another eight hours. Easy. So I'm going to do everything I want." Cool, collected, in total control. Despite any distaste he may have outwardly given the very concept of Dom taking him over, Matt panted a little harder for a few seconds and knew that the heat pulsing and surging through him was directly related to how fucking amazing he looked, sounded, behaved in this position.

"Like what? You're not going to-- _oh my god!_ " He gasped, and bit the inside of his cheek to suppress a cry as Dom came down on his chest and bit hard on his nipple. Immediate, feral. _He wanted to leave bite marks all over me_. 

He pulled up and twisted the nipple in his mouth, flicking the flesh behind his teeth with his tongue before the pain was significantly numbed and he moved to the next, priming it with a wet kiss first. Dom fanned his fingers over Matt's skin as he went, chest and abdomen and thighs covered with tender touches that were followed as the minutes wore on by a roving, ferocious mouth, teeth biting into but never quite breaking the skin, gnawing for a moment and dizzying up his mind but not enough that it was too much. 

Dom deftly moved around and between the bucking and flying of his elbows and knees, which convulsed and contracted and pitched around in reaction with each unexpected patch of skin that was given the treatment of a good, hard, unapologetic love bite. He suckled and left claims wherever he went: the inside of Matt's elbow. The pale, soft flesh of his upper arms. His throat, naturally. The joint between his jawline and his neck. His chest, all over, down to his belly and the fleshy bit right below his navel. His thighs were kissed and kissed and licked and nibbled upon, and a couple of choice marks were left there as well. By the time Matt was given to enjoy the passing minutes and the lips and hands massaging his body in patches, Dom assured him with a dark laugh, "You won't be able to take a shred of clothing off for a couple of weeks without knowing I was here." 

"I can live with that, I think." 

"You look…" He paused in his work, and, kneeling just over Matt's midsection, he held his cock, pumping him slowly and deliberately. At this, even, Matt felt that itch inside throbbing again. He needed it, there was no way he would settle for less. Perhaps because he had been told he would have it, he wanted it even more? "…I don't know there's a word for it."

Certainly, it would be impossible to reach a higher level of need. He let his legs spread naturally around Dom, wrapping up over his arms, his back. Dom smiled down at him, eyes hooded and then closing when Matt's leg brushed his cock, at first accidentally and then again, again, causing what friction he could. Urging him. 

"Fuckable, I hope?" 

"Oh, I don't know, I was thinking of leaving you here like this. See if you can save the universe like that." 

He knew he was kidding, which was the only reason he took the moment to screw himself up in indignation. "Don't even joke about that! Our situation is serious!" 

Dom leaned down over his face and they laughed together in their throats, kissing, pushing tongues together, sliding against each others' cheeks. "I know, I know. I'm pretty serious, too. Not about leaving you here, though." 

"Mmm," when they spoke in close whispering tones, when Dom's hand was gripping him tightly and stroking him, with the promise of sex so close, too close, it was enough for Matt to get lost in the intimacy. To wrap himself in it, content with bantering and teasing and just feeling, "so I'm waiting for you to make good on things. Come on, Dom. Fuck me?" 

"Not good enough." He breathed close to Matt's ear; they volleyed short, exuberant gasps back and forth with the rising stimulation. 

"Come on," not impatient this time, not affronted. Matt just enjoyed the building pressure, the ever-increasing promise of payoff, for what it was, "don't you want to?" 

"Mmm?" 

"…slide deep inside of me and fuck me 'til I can't take it anymore?" His voice was nearly cooing, an attempt to catch flies with honey mixed with an obvious love of his own voice, purring as he twined and wound his fingers in Dom's hair, holding him close. "I want your cock." 

"Matthew." 

He pushed right up to Dom's ear, whispering there as if the words that followed were a secret thing, something only Dom needed to hear (which was true, though somehow in the prevailing mood of the situation there was a poignant sweetness to the move). "I want you to fuck me, I want you as hard and as deep as you can go, and after you come I want you to tease me. I want you to build me up and make it worth every second. When you finally make me come and I'll wake up Chris and I'll wake up about four nearby star systems while I'm at it. Do you want to do that for me?"

Dom pulled away, grinning. He didn't answer. He couldn't. A word wanted to form between his almost-speaking lips, but then he just shook his head and sat up, hooking his elbows beneath Matt's knees and jerking him forward. Ivory sheets beneath the pink duvet, Matt in so many contrasting shades standing out like a dream against them. 

He pushed into him and held onto each moment, disappearing inch by slow, torturous inch within Matt's body, summoning a low, whining reaction and a pair of hands clawing at the sheets, enough force to pull them loose from the mattress. 

He stayed motionless long enough for Matt to appreciate the feeling, to close his eyes and just concentrate on it without worrying about balancing or keeping things interesting or making the next move. All he had to make happen is his current position was pleasure. He had to hold on to each moment and let it sear him, let it wash in waves of alternating hot and cold. There was a certain freedom about the position, a certain power that Power itself never afforded. Dom felt harder and bigger and more unbelievably hot than he had the first time. Not better, not worse, just different. Matt took a deep breath and felt like his entire body was taken over by their joining. It was not an unpleasant sensation. He would never want it to last forever; that would only damage the gravity of it. But for now, it was raw and it was animal and it was everything. 

Silent they stayed as Dom held on to his legs and began to move, thrusting firmly and so incredibly deep, knocking sounds from Matt as he did, rendering him speechless one moment and unable to stop himself moaning, the next. Suddenly he didn't care about Chris in the next room. He was feeling too much, pulling at the sheets all loose around him, making a pool of fabric in which they were a gorgeous centerpiece. 

The sex sounds struck a nearly musical balance, skin meeting skin and rustling fabric and ever-rhythmic vocal elation. Other than that, they still didn't speak. Perhaps they both wanted to know how it would feel to forgo the talk and just experience it, each other, the smaller indescribable things. Matt found himself listening, and then closing his eyes. Dom's thrusts moved him around on the bed, getting faster and even harder, a crescendo as his jacket moved against the sheets and the sheets moved against his body and his body moved against Dom's, with Dom's. A symphony.

He wondered if he had even really felt it when Dom came the first time. It was impossible to remember, he found, especially when Dom gulped a hard breath, leaned forward against Matt, and choked on the words: "Fuck, oh fuck." He was almost there. And this time there was no holding back. He was ravenous and he wanted it all before they were effectively done. The Next Time might as well have been Never Again in the heat of that moment. 

An indescribable heat tore through Matt and made him quiver, made him moan in a delayed reaction as Dom panted, fell onto his hands, worked in insistent thrust through to the last. He came and then it was over, without much warning and without any fanfare. They seemed to be reacting and experiencing different things, a syncopated but alarmingly beautiful beat kept by their bodies and their checked voices. Still concerned with waking other people.

Matt liked it this way, he found. There was something so natural, so human, so mysterious about the devolution from what bordered on role-playing to the naked sexual power of just Experiencing. 

He felt happy. He felt unlike himself. Or did he just feel So Much like himself that it seemed unreal, seemed like feeling and watching someone else's life in those moments? He wasn't fooling himself that he was human, that they were human, and that the fleeting joys of flesh and lust would fill an entire lifetime. No, that wasn't real and he knew it. He didn't need that illusion, clutching Dom's hair in little flexing handfuls as the blond head descended on his chest, kissing down in the afterglow. 

There was no illusion here at all. There was only…

No. Not even yet. 

"Dom, it's so good." He whispered into the air around them, helpless as Dom kissed down to his cock, straining and aching and so happy for the release that he moaned out loud, finally unconcerned as Dom was about the noise they made. 

The noise he made: the louder moans, the higher-pitched cries, the low grunting from deep in his throat. All in regular intervals as Dom sucked him and serviced him, no words. Those noises felt good, they aided the tension, they aided the slowly building freefall of release. Little by little, he formed words. It worried him for only a moment. He knew the sort of things he was liable to say. He realized he didn't really give a damn.

He started out with "yes" and crooked one leg over Dom's back, the angle a brilliant addition to the sensation. Dom's name was added to the mix. Then unintelligible, encouraging dividers between the words as he began to thrust his hips into the mouth that was handling him so deeply, so smoothly. Dom was good at this. He was a fool to have shown him such talent without thinking it was going to be exploited at every opportunity in the future. "Yes. Dom. Nnn. Yes." 

When the word "fuck" joined in, he knew he was close, too close, unbearably close. Matt drew his lips in between his teeth and raked over them, volume increasing, tone more insistent. "Yes. Fuck! Oh, god. Dom, yes." Dom was taking each thrust, allowing himself to be fucked in the mouth, holding Matt up and off the mattress just a bit to aide the intensity of his movement. Matt could swear he felt him smiling around his cock, that smile only growing as his voice rose, clamor and fever and—

A beautiful blankness filled his mind. He dug his ankles in, one into Dom's back and the other into the mattress, the tangled sheet beneath. _Oh, fuck yes._ A good blowjob would always trump, at least in the moment, every other superlative feeling in his long, long life. And Dom just held him there, coaxing him to the very end, as Matt found the strength to offer one last, long, loud moan in explicit satisfaction. Release. Worship. Some mixture of all three.

He thought about the Unspeakable Thing again, as they rearranged themselves without wanting to test their muscles and their bodies, to find out what strange and hitherto-unknown aches and strains would plague them in the waking world. This world was completely separate, this bedroom was a measure of peace and retreat. They wavered in and out of true consciousness, in and out of even acknowledging existence beyond the physical, clutching and holding and moving against each other even in the sweet, slick aftermath that may have been uncomfortable if they cared to think about it, which they didn't. 

Matt thought about it, and then against it, and then he opened his eyes and he was looking at Dom, who was looking right back. He decided to test out the telepathy he knew had never and would never be his.

_I love you. I love you. I love you. I can't believe that I love you and it doesn't even make sense but I love you goddamnit will you listen to me, will you let me know that I'm not alone. I love you._

He just kept looking, blinking a few times lazily. His eyes were so fixed and determined on Dom's that, for a moment of reaction, he thought maybe he had actually managed to get the message across. Those waters were always so much easier to test unspoken. 

Dom actually looked to be tuned in to the real world, for a moment, shaking his head slightly as it came up off the pillow. Only a second, but it was there. "That was weird." 

"What was?" Matt was hopeful, although he knew the likelihood of Dom "hearing" him was…well…there were no odds, it just couldn't happen. 

"It's just…silly. I think you actually made a physical impact on me, with your eyes." 

Matt smiled, pretending not to know what he meant. "Oh?" 

"Yeah," Dom answered dreamily, his body as heavy as Matt's felt but not too heavy to lift one hand, pressing it against his nose, then pulling it over his lips and down his neck, "they're really keen, you know." 

"Are they beautiful?" He was actually not mocking, and didn't care suddenly if Dom's mind could pick up on his thought waves. 

"Come off it." Dom smirked and breathed a self-conscious laugh, choosing at that point to roll over. At first Matt thought he was just going to turn away without another word, sleep all bundled on his own side of the bed. "Yeah they are. Go to sleep."

And then he pushed back into Matt's body, lining up just so. Matt hesitated at first, not quite knowing how to react to the position. He wasn't used to sleeping, as it was, as he had become so reacquainted with his Time Lord physiology. But he had a good foundation of human living to lay the groundwork. He could stand to fake it. A little sleep would do him well. Cautiously, and then with a very sure grip, he wrapped his top arm around Dom, and pulled him tightly. They didn't bother with a sheet over them, it was too hot for that.

A minute or two passed and Matt was sure Dom had fallen asleep. Then, he heard the body wrapped up in his stir, followed by a tiny yawn, and Dom said (as quiet and nonchalant as anything): 

"Yeah, I love you too." 

"But I didn't—" 

Smartly, Matt cut himself off, and relaxed as well as he could, hoping Dom wouldn't notice the sudden increased tempo of his heartbeat(s). 

That was the problem with Unspeakable Things. When they were finally spoken, there were so often misunderstandings involved. 

No need to mention it when they woke up again. The subconscious suggestion was there. That much was obvious. "Let's go have some real fun, now," Matt whispered against his hair from behind, closing his eyes and stretching out around Dom's body more comfortably, "when you wake up, let's save some planets and rule them together."


End file.
